Hunt

How to spell hunt

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hunt

What does hunt mean?

1. verbTo chase and try to catch or kill an animal, or to search determinedly for something.
2. nounAn act of hunting, or an organised search or pursuit.

Hunt in a sentence

• verb

  The spaniel was trained to hunt rabbits across the fields.

• noun

  The hunt for the missing documents took most of the afternoon.

• verb

  She had to hunt through every drawer to find the spare key.

• noun

  The local hunt met on the village green at dawn.

Where does hunt come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending from the Old English verb 'huntian', which meant to chase and pursue wild animals for food or sport. Scholars connect it to an older Germanic root tied to seizing or taking, the same notion that lies behind the verb 'to hent', an archaic word meaning to grasp. From the earliest written records it referred specifically to the pursuit of game, but over the centuries the sense widened to cover any determined search, so we now hunt for keys, bargains, or a new job just as readily as for deer. The noun form, meaning the act of hunting or an organised hunting party, grew naturally out of the verb. Because the spelling is short and entirely phonetic, it has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• hunt (from Old English huntian: to chase game)