daunt

From Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin domitō (“tame”, verb), frequentative of Latin domō (“tame, conquer”, verb), from Proto-Indo-European *demh₂- (“to domesticate, tame”). Doublet of dompt.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /dɔːnt/
• (some accents) IPA^(key): /dɑːnt/
• (US) IPA^(key): /dɔnt/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /dɑnt/
• Rhymes: -ɔːnt, -ɑːnt

daunt (third-person singular simple present daunts, present participle daunting, simple past and past participle daunted)

1. (transitive) To discourage, intimidate.
   • 1912, Alexander Berkman, chapter 17, in Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist:

     No, I shall not disgrace the Cause, I shall not grieve my comrades by weak surrender! I will fight and struggle, and not be daunted by threat or torture.

   • 1913, Paul Laurence Dunbar, “A Lost Dream”, in The Complete Poems of Paul Laurence Dunbar:

     Ah, I have changed, I do not know / Why lonely hours affect me so. / In days of yore, this were not wont, / No loneliness my soul could daunt.

2. (transitive) To overwhelm.

• Dutan

daunt

1. Alternative form of daunten