gaunt
/ɡɔːnt/
"gaunt" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“gaunt” has 7 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #32,822. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #32,822
- frequency rank, English
- 2,313
- “G” headwords
- 7
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Angular, bony, and lean.
Corpus desk
Index EN-gaunt · gaunt · English
gaunt · rank #32,822 · 7 variants · 20 confusables
- FREQ-MID #32,822
- LEN-MID 5 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
- VAR-MID 7 variants
- BOOK-MID 2,313
- PHOTO-FINISH Gilchrist
Nearest frequency peer: Gilchrist (+1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “gaunt”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- gagged
gagged
67,184 corpus weight
- ganga
ganga
67,182 corpus weight
- garret
garret
67,181 corpus weight
- gaunt
gaunt
67,179 corpus weight
- Gilchrist
Gilchrist
67,178 corpus weight
- gms
gms
67,176 corpus weight
What this shows “gaunt” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | gaunt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɡɔːnt/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #32,822 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “gaunt”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 7 spelling variants around gaunt (IPA /ɡɔːnt/), anadjective. Corpus frequency is #32,822 among 2,313 “G” headwords. Wiktionary lists 6 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 7 likely wrong-spelling variants for gaunt, with forms such as "agunt", "ganut", and "gaunnt". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "gun", "gut", "guns", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gaunt, gawnt, gawnte, gant (“lean, slender, thin, gaunt”); further etymology uncertain. Speculated origins include: * from a North Germanic/Scandinavian source related to Old Norse gandr (“magic staff; stick”) (the ancestor of Icelandic … The correct English form is gaunt, spelled G-A-U-N-T.
Definition
- 1Angular, bony, and lean.
- 2Unhealthily thin, as from hunger or illness: drawn, emaciated, haggard.
- 3Of a place or thing: bleak, desolate.
- 4Greedy; also, hungry, ravenous.
- 5With a positive or neutral connotation: not overweight; lean, slender, slim.
- 6Of a sound: suggesting bleakness and desolation.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how gaunt appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
[H]e presented for the first time to Mannering his tall, gaunt, awkward, boney figure, attired in a threadbare suit of black, […]
Hanging from the beam, / Slowly swaying (such the law), / Gaunt the shadow on your green, / Shenandoah!
Etymology
From Middle English gaunt, gawnt, gawnte, gant (“lean, slender, thin, gaunt”); further etymology uncertain. Speculated origins include: * from a North Germanic/Scandinavian source related to Old Norse gandr (“magic staff; stick”) (the ancestor of Icelandic gandur (“magic staff”) and Norwegian gand (“thin, pointed stick; tall, thin man”)), from Proto-Germanic *gandaz (“stick; staff”). Other suggested Germanic cognates include Swedish gank (“(dialectal) lean, emaciated horse”); Danish gand, gan, Norwegian gana (“cut-off tree limbs”); Bavarian Gunten (“kind of peg or wedge”). These words have all been connected to *gunþiz (“battle”) or its ultimate source, but this comparison presents semantic and phonetic difficulties. * from Old French: ** The NED/OED (1900) suggests it could be a "graphic adoption" of Old French gant, a variant spelling of gent (“elegant; nice, pleasant; noble”) modern French gent), from Latin gēns (“clan, tribe; country, nation; family; people”), from Proto-Italic *gentis, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis, from the root *ǵenh₁- (“to produce, to beget, to give birth”). (It could not be an oral borrowing since the Old French word started with [dʒ], not [ɡ], due to the palatalization of Latin "ge"; compare jaunty from French gentil.) If this etymology is correct, the early, now-obsolete positive or neutral sense 4.1 ("slender") was apparently original. ** Spitzer 1944 argues it is more likely to be from the Norman version of Old French jau(l)net (“yellowish”), diminutive of jaune (“yellow”), from Latin galbinus (the palatalization of Latin "ga" did not occur in northern French dialects).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- agunt
- ganut
- gaunnt
- gauntt
- gautn
- ggaunt
- guant
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of gaunt - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "gaunt", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 5 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (7 here; floor ≥5).