gauntest

Adjective

gaunt (comparative gaunter, superlative gauntest)

1. Angular, bony, and lean.
   • [H]e presented for the first time to Mannering his tall, gaunt, awkward, boney figure, attired in a threadbare suit of black, […]1815 February 24, [Walter Scott], chapter II, in Guy Mannering; or, The Astrologer. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] James Ballantyne and Co. for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and...
2. Unhealthily thin, as from hunger or illness: drawn, emaciated, haggard.
   • Old Gaunt indeede, and gaunt in being olde: / VVithin me Griefe hath kept a tedious faſt. / And vvho abſtaines from meate that is not gaunt? / For ſleeping England long time haue I vvatcht, / VVatching breedes leaneneſſe, leaneneſſe is all gaunt: / The pleaſure that ſome fathers feede vpon / Is my...1595 December 9 (first known performance), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Simmes for Androw Wise, […], published 1597...

   Synonyms:

   scraggy, scrawny, skinny

3. (figuratively) Of a place or thing: bleak, desolate.
   • But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever before me the old dark murky rooms—the gaunt suits of mail with their ghostly silent air—the faces all awry, grinning from wood and stone— […]1840 April – 1841 November, Charles Dickens, “Chapter the First”, in The Old Curiosity Shop. A Tale. […], volume I, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1841, →OCLC, page 47–79
4. (figuratively, rare) Greedy; also, hungry, ravenous.
   • Gorg'd vvith our plunder, yet ſtill gaunt for ſpoil, / Rapacious G—d—n faſtens on our iſle; […]1747, [Tobias Smollett], Reproof: A Satire. […], London: […] W. Owen, […]; and M. Cooper, […], →OCLC, page 7, lines 123–124
5. (obsolete) With a positive or neutral connotation: not overweight; lean, slender, slim.
   • I know where a woman was got with child, and was ashamed at the matter, and went into a secret place, where she had no woman at her travail, and was delivered of three children at a birth. She wrung their necks, and cast them into a water, and so killed her children: suddenly she was gaunt again...1549 April 14 (Gregorian calendar), Hugh Latimer, “The Fifth Sermon Preached before King Edward [VI], April 5th, 1549.”, in The Sermons of the Right Reverend Father in God, and Constant Martyr of...

   Synonyms:

   gracile, lank, lean, leansome, lithe, lithesome, lissome, rangy, sleek, slender

   Antonyms:

   big-boned, bulbous, corpulent, curvy, Daniel Lambertish, eurysome, famine resistant, gravitationally challenged, horizontally challenged, obese

6. (figuratively, obsolete) Of a sound: suggesting bleakness and desolation.
   • To the shouting throng / My fancy hears a dismal voice reply, / Like the gaunt echo of a hollow tomb.— […]1814, [John Galt], “The Prophetess; a Tragedy. […]”, in The New British Theatre; a Selection of Original Dramas, Not Yet Acted, […], volume I, London: […] A[braham] J[ohn] Valpy [for] Henry Colburn...

See all 7 meanings of gaunt