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Hunt vs Stalk - What's the difference?

hunt | stalk |

As a proper noun hunt

is for a hunter (for game, birds etc).

As a noun stalk is

the stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts or stalk can be a particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone.

As a verb stalk is

(lb) to approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer or stalk can be to walk haughtily.

hunt

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To chase down prey and (usually) kill it.
  • * Bible, Genesis xxvii. 5
  • Esau went to the field to hunt for venison.
  • * Tennyson
  • Like a dog, he hunts in dreams.
  • * 2010 , Backyard deer hunting: converting deer to dinner for pennies per pound (ISBN 1449084354), page 10:
  • State Wildlife Management Areas often offer licensed hunters the opportunity to hunt deer on public lands.
  • To try to find something; search.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • He after honour hunts , I after love.
  • * , chapter=1
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
  • * 2004 , Prill Boyle, Defying Gravity: A Celebration of Late-Blooming Women (ISBN 1578601541), page 119:
  • My idea of retirement was to hunt seashells, play golf, and do a lot of walking.
  • * 2011 , Ann Major, Nobody's Child (ISBN 1459271939):
  • What kind of woman came to an island and stayed there through a violent storm and then got up the next morning to hunt seashells? She had fine, delicate features with high cheekbones and the greenest eyes he'd ever seen.
    The police are hunting for evidence.
  • To drive; to chase; with down'', ''from'', ''away , etc.
  • to hunt down a criminal
    He was hunted from the parish.
  • To use or manage (dogs, horses, etc.) in hunting.
  • * Addison
  • He hunts a pack of dogs.
  • To use or traverse in pursuit of game.
  • He hunts the woods, or the country.

    Derived terms

    * hunt where the ducks are * that dog won't hunt

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of hunting.
  • A hunting expedition.
  • An organization devoted to hunting, or the people belonging to such an organization (capitalized if the name of a specific organization).
  • Derived terms

    * treasure hunt

    stalk

    English

    (wikipedia stalk)

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) stalke, diminutive of stale'' 'ladder upright, stalk', from (etyl) stalu 'wooden upright', from (etyl) ).

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The stem or main axis of a plant, which supports the seed-carrying parts.
  • :
  • *
  • *:Three chairs of the steamer type, all maimed, comprised the furniture of this roof-garden, withon one of the copings a row of four red clay flower-pots filled with sun-baked dust from which gnarled and rusty stalks thrust themselves up like withered elfin limbs.
  • The petiole, pedicel, or peduncle of a plant.
  • Something resembling the stalk of a plant, such as the stem of a quill.
  • :(Grew)
  • (lb) An ornament in the Corinthian capital resembling the stalk of a plant, from which the volutes and helices spring.
  • One of the two upright pieces of a ladder.
  • :(Chaucer)
  • (label)
  • #A stem or peduncle, as in certain barnacles and crinoids.
  • #The narrow basal portion of the abdomen of a hymenopterous insect.
  • #The peduncle of the eyes of decapod crustaceans.
  • (lb) An iron bar with projections inserted in a core to strengthen it; a core arbor.
  • Etymology 2

    From (etyl) stalken, from (etyl) -).Robert K. Barnhart and Sol Steinmetz, eds., ''Chambers Dictionary of Etymology , s.v. "stalk2" (New York: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd., 2006), 1057. Alternate etymology connects (etyl) 'to steal'.

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • (lb) To approach slowly and quietly in order not to be discovered when getting closer.
  • *Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)
  • *:As for shooting a man from behind a wall, it is cruelly like to stalking a deer.
  • *
  • *:But they had already discovered that he could be bullied, and they had it their own way; and presently Selwyn lay prone upon the nursery floor, impersonating a ladrone while pleasant shivers chased themselves over Drina, whom he was stalking .
  • (lb) To (try to) follow or contact someone constantly, often resulting in harassment.(w)
  • :
  • (lb) To walk slowly and cautiously; to walk in a stealthy, noiseless manner.
  • *(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
  • *:[Bertran] stalks close behind her, like a witch's fiend, / Pressing to be employed.
  • :(Shakespeare)
  • (lb) To walk behind something, such as a screen, for the purpose of approaching game; to proceed under cover.
  • *(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
  • *:The king"I must stalk ," said he.
  • *(Michael Drayton) (1563-1631)
  • *:One underneath his horse, to get a shoot doth stalk .
  • Conjugation
    (en-conj-simple)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A particular episode of trying to follow or contact someone.
  • A hunt (of a wild animal).
  • References

    Etymology 3

    1530, 'to walk haughtily', perhaps from (etyl) 'high, lofty, steep, stiff'; see above

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To walk haughtily.
  • * Dryden
  • With manly mien he stalked along the ground.
  • * Addison
  • Then stalking through the deep, / He fords the ocean.
  • * Mericale
  • I forbear myself from entering the lists in which he has long stalked alone and unchallenged.