GAUNT

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does gaunt mean? 

• GAUNT (adjective)
  The adjective GAUNT has 1 sense:

1. very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

  Familiarity information: GAUNT used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GAUNT (adjective)

Comparative: gaunter   
Superlative: gauntest   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Very thin especially from disease or hunger or cold

Synonyms:

cadaverous; emaciated; gaunt; haggard; pinched; skeletal; wasted

Context example:

kept life in his wasted frame only by grim concentration

Similar:

lean; thin (lacking excess flesh)

Derivation:

gauntness (extreme leanness (usually caused by starvation or disease))

 Context examples 

With a motherly tenderness the gaunt woman put her arm round her mistress and led her from the room.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Her thinness seemed to be the effect of some wasting fire within her, which found a vent in her gaunt eyes.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Taller and broader than her husband, her flowing gown of sendall, and fur-lined tippet, could not conceal the gaunt and ungraceful outlines of her figure.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

We were all assembled round him when the door opened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey wolf.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She was thin and gaunt, and never smiled now.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

On her other side ran a gaunt old wolf, grizzled and marked with the scars of many battles.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

His tall, gaunt, stringy figure is insensible to fatigue, and his dry, half-sarcastic, and often wholly unsympathetic manner is uninfluenced by any change in his surroundings.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

A shadow passed over the gaunt face of the explorer.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)