hunt
pronunciation
How to pronounce hunt in British English:
UK [hʌnt]
How to pronounce hunt in American English:
US [hʌnt]
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- Noun:
- an association of huntsmen who hunt for sport
- an instance of searching for something
- the activity of looking thoroughly in order to find something or someone
- the work of finding and killing or capturing animals for food or pelts
- the pursuit and killing or capture of wild animals regarded as a sport
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- Verb:
- pursue for food or sport (as of wild animals)
- pursue or chase relentlessly
- chase away, with as with force
- yaw back and forth about a flight path
- oscillate about a desired speed, position, or state to an undesirable extent
- seek, search for
- search (an area) for prey
Word Origin
- hunt
- hunt: [OE] Hunt is an ancient word, probably traceable back to an Indo-European *kend-, which also produced Swedish hinna ‘reach’. Its original Old English descendant was hentan ‘seize’, of which huntian (source of modern English hunt) was a derivative. Etymologically, therefore, hunt means ‘try to seize’.=> hand
- hunt (v.)
- Old English huntian "chase game," related to hentan "to seize," from Proto-Germanic *huntojan (cognates: Gothic hinþan "to seize, capture," Old High German hunda "booty"), from PIE *kend-. General sense of "search diligently" (for anything) is first recorded c. 1200. Related: Hunted; hunting. Happy hunting-grounds "Native American afterlife paradise" is from "Last of the Mohicans" (1826).
- hunt (n.)
- early 12c., from hunt (v.). Meaning "body of persons associated for the purpose of hunting with a pack of hounds" is first recorded 1570s.
Example
- 1. The hunt is on for alternatives to fossil fuels .
- 2. In other cases , the business owner conducts the hunt himself .
- 3. Cash-strapped governments everywhere are on the hunt for new sources of revenue .
- 4. Such hard-luck stories haven 't slowed the hunt for the next great investment .
- 5. After a 75-year hunt , researchers have now spotted the first solid evidence of their existence .