“hounds” is a form of
hound
/haʊnd/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms hounds hounding hounded hune
- noun A dog, particularly a breed with a good sense of smell developed for hunting other animals. “The hounds were baying a fox.”
- noun Any canine animal.
- noun (by extension) Someone who seeks something.
- noun (by extension) A male who constantly seeks the company of desirable women.
- noun A despicable person.
- noun A houndfish.
- verb (transitive) To persistently harass doggedly. “He hounded me for weeks, but I was simply unable to pay back his loan.”
- verb (transitive, archaic) To urge on against; to set (dogs) upon in hunting.
- noun (nautical, in the plural) Projections located at the masthead or foremast, serving as a support for the trestletrees and top on which to rest; a foretop.
- noun A side bar used to strengthen portions of the running gear of a vehicle.
- proper noun A small village and civil parish in Eastleigh borough, Hampshire, England (OS grid ref SU4708).
Synonyms
cur badger bait bedevil beleaguer persecute dog bullyrag besiege bug devil beset chevy give someone grief harass harry pester pick at plague vex hound dog cad bounder blackguard heel hunt trace
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English hound, from Old English hund, from Proto-West Germanic *hund, from Proto-Germanic *hundaz, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwṓ. 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.
From Middle English hounden, from the noun (see above).
From Middle English hownde, hount, houn, probably from Old Norse húnn, from Proto-Germanic *hūnaz.
Webster’s 1913
- noun 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. Hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs. Shak.
- noun A despicable person. "Boy! false hound!" Shak.
- verb To set on the chase; to incite to pursuit; as, to hounda dog at a hare; to hound on pursuers. Abp. Bramhall.
- verb To hunt or chase with hounds, or as with hounds. L'Estrange.
Etymology [OE. hound, hund, dog, AS. hund; akin to OS. & OFries. hund, D. hond, G. hund, OHG. hunt, Icel. hundr, Dan. & Sw. hund, Goth. hunds, and prob. to Lith. sz, Ir. & Gael. cu, L. canis, Gr. çvan. sq. root229. Cf. Canine, Cynic, Kennel.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hound”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details