Hunt

Part of speech: verb, noun

Pronunciation: /hʌnt/

Definitions

1. to search for and pursue wild animals or game, typically for food or sport
2. to pursue and capture animals or resources, often as a sport or for subsistence, while also searching for and retrieving objects of interest or information
3. To chase wild creatures in order to catch or kill them for food or recreation ; to actively look for a person, item, or information through thorough effort

Etymology: The verb "hunt" once meant something closer to "to seize" or "to capture" than to chasing game. Its Old English ancestor, "huntian," was used of pursuing and catching prey in general, and the Proto-West Germanic root behind it carried the sense of capturing or taking. That older idea of seizing hangs on in a related Old English word, "hūþ," meaning plunder or booty, and in Old High German "hunda," booty, which shows the word once centred on what was taken rather than on the chase itself. The Proto-Indo-European root is thought to be "ḱent-," meaning "to catch, seize," and it links "hunt" with the Old English verb "hentan," still visible in the modern "hent," to catch or seize. Gothic had "hunþs," meaning a body of captives, which preserves the same idea of taking people or goods by force. Some speakers in parts of England also treat "hunt" as a collective form of "hound," a folk etymology rather than the real origin.

Synonyms: search, pursue, track, chase, seek

Antonyms: abandon, ignore, give up, neglect, release