dunt

See also: dun't

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English dunt, dynt, from Old English dynt (“dint, blow, strike, stroke, bruise, stripe, thud, the mark or noise of a blow, a bruise, noise, crash”), from Proto-West Germanic *dunti, from Proto-Germanic *duntiz (“shock, blow”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰen- (“to beat, push”). Cognate with Swedish dialectal dunt (“stroke”). Doublet of dent and dint.

Noun

dunt (plural dunts)

1. (Scotland) A stroke; a dull-sounding blow.
   • 2022, Liam McIlvanney, The Heretic, page 274:

     He was alive to every creak andd dunt, the thinness of the walls, as if the tenement block was a kind of aural panopticon that funnelled every sound to the other residents, let everyone eavesdrop on their business.

Verb

dunt (third-person singular simple present dunts, present participle dunting, simple past and past participle dunted)

1. (Scotland) To strike; give a blow to; knock.
   • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:

     Syne he was the king of France, and fought hard with a whin bush till he had banged it to pieces. After that nothing would content him but he must be a bogle, for he found his head dunting on the stars and his legs were knocking the hills together.

Etymology 2

Noun

dunt (uncountable)

1. (UK, dialect) The disease gid or sturdy in sheep.

Etymology 3

Alternative forms

• dun't

Contraction

dunt

1. (Yorkshire) Pronunciation spelling of don't.

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Audio:

  (file)

Verb

dunt

1. inflection of dunnen:
   1. second/third-person singular present indicative
   2. (archaic) plural imperative

Norwegian Nynorsk

Verb

dunt

1. past participle of dynja

Old French

Etymology

From Vulgar Latin *de unde, from Latin dē + unde.

Preposition

dunt

1. of; of which; of whom
   • c. 1150, Thomas d'Angleterre, Le Roman de Tristan, page 94 (of the Champion Classiques edition, →ISBN), line 853:

     mais de l'el dunt vos oi parler

     but of the thing I hear you speak of

Usage notes

• Like French dont, may be translated by of whom when it refers to a person and of which when it does not.

Descendants

• Middle French: dont
  • French: dont