Other forms: hunting, hunted, hunts
To hunt is to chase wild animals to catch them, or to search hard. Hunt for food, hunt the keys, a treasure hunt.
Hunting for food is the oldest human activity there is. Hunting wild mammals with dogs has been banned in England and Wales since 2004, which did not end the argument. The searching sense is now the commoner in daily speech: hunting for the keys, house-hunting, job-hunting. Note hunter; and that the Old English verb has barely changed.
1verbhuntTo chase wild animals to catch them.
“Lions usually hunt at night, when it is cooler.”
2verbsearchTo search hard for something.
“I hunted everywhere for my keys and finally found them in the fridge.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
hunt is a chasing or searching.
Old English huntian is Germanic, possibly from a root meaning to seize. Hound comes from a different root, though the two words have always worked together.
Proto-Indo-European
*ḱent- — to catch, seize
Proto-West Germanic
*huntōn — to hunt, capture
Old English
huntian — to hunt
Middle English
hunten
English, today
hunt
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 (“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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA