Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A domestic dog of any of various breeds commonly used for hunting, characteristically having drooping ears, a short coat, and a deep resonant voice.
  • noun A dog.
  • noun A contemptible person; a scoundrel.
  • noun One who eagerly pursues something.
  • noun A devotee or an enthusiast.
  • transitive verb To pursue relentlessly and tenaciously.
  • transitive verb To make repeated demands of or subject to persistent criticism: synonym: harass.
  • transitive verb To pressure or force from a place or situation.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A dog; specifically, a dog of a breed or variety used in the chase, as in hunting the boar, the deer, the fox, the hare, or the otter.
  • noun A mean, contemptible fellow; a dastard; a poltroon: as, a low hound; a sly hound.
  • noun Same as houndfish, 1.
  • noun The oldwife, or long-tailed duck, Harelda glacialis: so called from its gabble, likened to the cry of a pack of hounds.
  • noun Nautical, a projection at the masthead on either side, serving as a support for the trestle-trees of large or the rigging of smaller vessels. Also called hounding.
  • noun Either of two pieces of wood used in artillery-limbers to connect the splinter-bar and pole with the axle.
  • noun Either of a pair of side-bars or horizontal braces for reinforcing various parts of the running-gear of a vehicle.
  • To set on the chase; incite to pursuit.
  • To hunt or pursue with or as if with hounds: as, to hound deer.
  • To pursue or harass as if with hounds: as, to hound one on to ruin.
  • To follow like a hound; track; trail.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Zoöl.) A variety of the domestic dog, usually having large, drooping ears, esp. one which hunts game by scent, as the foxhound, bloodhound, deerhound, but also used for various breeds of fleet hunting dogs, as the greyhound, boarhound, etc.
  • noun A despicable person.
  • noun (Zoöl.) A houndfish.
  • noun (Naut.) Projections at the masthead, serving as a support for the trestletrees and top to rest on.
  • noun A side bar used to strengthen portions of the running gear of a vehicle.
  • noun to hunt with hounds.
  • transitive verb To set on the chase; to incite to pursuit
  • transitive verb To hunt or chase with hounds, or as with hounds.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A dog, particularly a breed with a good sense of smell developed for hunting other animals. (Hunt hound, Hunting hound, hunting dog, hunter)
  • noun by extension Someone who seeks something.
  • noun by extension A male who constantly seeks the company of receptive females. In more recent times, hound has been replaced by dog but the sense remains the same.
  • verb transitive To persistently harass.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who is morally reprehensible
  • noun any of several breeds of dog used for hunting typically having large drooping ears
  • verb pursue or chase relentlessly

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English hund; see kwon- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English honde < Old English hund, from Proto-Germanic *hundaz (confer West Frisian hûn, Dutch hond, German Hund, Danish hund), from pre-Germanic *ḱu̯n̥-tós, *ḱwn̥tós (confer Latvian sùnt-ene ("big dog")), englargement of Proto-Indo-European *ḱwṓ (“dog”) (cf. Welsh cwn ("dogs"), Tocharian AB ku, Lithuanian šuõ). Possible relation to Albanian hundë ("nose, scent, instinct"), from the Proto-Indo-European root *neh₂s- ~ *nh₂es, is uncertain.

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  • Newfoundland nickname for the Long-Tailed Duck (pronounced without the H).

    January 12, 2009