hunt
/hʌnt/
"hunt" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hunt” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,065 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #3,065
- frequency rank, English
- 4
- letters
- 6
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - To find or search for an animal in the wild with the intention of killing the animal for its meat or for sport.
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 | hunt |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /hʌnt/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #3,065 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “hunt” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for hunt is 4 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /hʌnt/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,065 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 6 likely wrong-spelling variants for hunt, with forms such as "hhunt", "hnut", and "hunnt". 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, "hut", "Hur", "Hus", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English hunten, from Old English huntian (“to hunt”), from Proto-West Germanic *huntōn (“to hunt, capture”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱent- (“to catch, seize”). Related to Old High German hunda (“booty”), Gothic 𐌷𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (hunþs, “bod… The correct English form is hunt, spelled H-U-N-T.
Definition
- 1To find or search for an animal in the wild with the intention of killing the animal for its meat or for sport.
- 2To try to find something; search (for).
- 3To drive; to chase; with down, from, away, etc.
- 4To use or manage (dogs, horses, etc.) in hunting.
- 5To use or traverse in pursuit of game.
- 6To move or shift the order of (a bell) in a regular course of changes.
- 7To shift up and down in order regularly.
- 8To be in a state of instability of movement or forced oscillation, as a governor which has a large movement of the balls for small change of load, an arc-lamp clutch mechanism which moves rapidly up and down with variations of current, etc.; also, to seesaw, as a pair of alternators working in parallel.
Etymology
From Middle English hunten, from Old English huntian (“to hunt”), from Proto-West Germanic *huntōn (“to hunt, capture”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱent- (“to catch, seize”). Related to Old High German hunda (“booty”), Gothic 𐌷𐌿𐌽𐌸𐍃 (hunþs, “body of captives”), Old English hūþ (“plunder, booty, prey”), Old English hentan (“to catch, seize”). More at hent, hint. In some areas read as a collective form of hound by folk etymology.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hhunt,hnut,hunnt,huntt,hutn,uhnt
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of hunt - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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
How do you spell "hunt"?
What does "hunt" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "hunt"?
How do you pronounce "hunt"?
What is the origin of the word "hunt"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “hunt”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is H-U-N-T - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /hʌnt/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “hut” - see the side-by-side comparison. hunt vs hut
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.