hound
Meanings
- A dog, particularly a breed with a good sense of smell developed for hunting other animals.
- Any canine animal.
- Someone who seeks something.
- A male who constantly seeks the company of desirable women.
- A despicable person.
- A houndfish.
- To persistently harass doggedly.
- To urge on against; to set (dogs) upon in hunting.
- Projections located at the masthead or foremast, serving as a support for the trestletrees and top on which to rest; a foretop.
- A side bar used to strengthen portions of the running gear of a vehicle.
- A small village and civil parish in Eastleigh borough, Hampshire, England (OS grid ref SU4708).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *ḱwṓder. Proto-Germanic *hundaz Proto-West Germanic *hund Old English hund Middle English hound English hound From Middle English hound, from Old English hund, from Proto-West Germanic *hund, from Proto-Germanic *hundaz. Doublet of canine. Cognate with Dutch hond (“dog”), German Hund (“dog”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish hund (“dog”), Faroese and Icelandic hundur (“dog”). In 14th-century England, hound was the general word for all domestic canines, and dog referred to a subtype resembling the modern mastiff and bulldog (much as the distinction between Hund and Dogge in contemporary German). By the 16th century, dog had become the general word, and hound had begun to refer only to breeds used for hunting.