English
hunt
see also: Hunt
Etymology

From Middle English hunten, from Old English huntian, from Proto-West Germanic *huntōn, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱent-.

In some areas read as a collective form of hound by folk etymology.

Pronunciation Verb

hunt (hunts, present participle hunting; simple past and past participle hunted)

  1. (ambitransitive) To find or search for an animal in the wild with the intention of killing the animal for its meat or for sport.
    State Wildlife Management areas often offer licensed hunters the opportunity to hunt on public lands.
    Her uncle will go out and hunt for deer, now that it is open season.
  2. (ambitransitive) To try to find something; search (for).
    The little girl was hunting for shells on the beach.
    The police are hunting for evidence.
    • c. 1590–1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:
      He after honour hunts, I after love.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:
      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.
  3. (transitive) To drive; to chase; with down, from, away, etc.
    to hunt down a criminal
    He was hunted from the parish.
  4. (transitive) To use or manage (dogs, horses, etc.) in hunting.
    Did you hunt that pony last week?
    • 1711 July 15 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, July 4, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 104; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC ↗:
      He hunts a pack of dogs better than any man in the country.
      The spelling has been modernized.
  5. (transitive) To use or traverse in pursuit of game.
    He hunts the woods, or the country.
  6. (bell-ringing, transitive) To move or shift the order of (a bell) in a regular course of changes.
  7. (bell-ringing, intransitive) To shift up and down in order regularly.
  8. (engineering, intransitive) To be in a state of instability of movement or forced oscillation, as a governor which has a large movement of the balls for small change of load, an arc-lamp clutch mechanism which moves rapidly up and down with variations of current, etc.; also, to seesaw, as a pair of alternators working in parallel.
Translations Translations Noun

hunt (plural hunts)

  1. The act of hunting.
  2. A hunting expedition.
  3. An organization devoted to hunting, or the people belonging to it.
  4. A pack of hunting dogs.
Translations Translations
Hunt
Pronunciation Proper noun
  1. Surname for a hunter (for game, birds etc).
  2. (rare) A male given name.
  3. A placename
    1. An unincorporated community in Knox County, Ohio.
    2. An unincorporated community in Kerr County, Texas.
    3. Former name of McFarland California.
    4. Ellipsis of Hunt County
Related terms

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