avaunt

English

Etymology

First used 1275–1325; Middle English, from Old French avant (“to the front”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /əˈvɔːnt/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːnt

Interjection

avaunt

1. (archaic) Begone; depart; used in contempt or abhorrence.
   • 1604 (date written), Iohn Marston [i.e., John Marston], Parasitaster, or The Fawne, […], London: […] T[homas] P[urfoot] for W[illiam] C[otton], published 1606, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i:

     Zuc. Hence auant I will marie a woman with no wombe, a creature with two noſes, a wench with no haire rather then remarie thee, […]

   • 1936, Rollo Ahmed, The Black Art, London: Long, page 114:

     In order to exorcise this she-devil, the attendants made circles on the walls with charcoal, within each was written: "Adam, Eve, Lilas, avaunt!"

Noun

avaunt (plural avaunts)

1. (obsolete) A vaunt; a boast.

Verb

avaunt (third-person singular simple present avaunts, present participle avaunting, simple past and past participle avaunted)

1. (obsolete) To advance; to move forward; to elevate.
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     But he, the more outrageous and bold,
     Sternely did bid him quickely thence avaunt

2. (obsolete) To depart; to move away.
   • 1549, Miles Coverdale, transl., The Paraphrase of Erasmus upon the New Testament, London: Edward Whitchurche, Volume 2, Jude 21:

     That they should not avaunt […] into the dongeon of eternal damnacion.

3. (archaic) To vaunt; to boast.

References

• “avaunt”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Old French

Adverb

avaunt

1. (late Anglo-Norman) Alternative form of avant

References

• avaunt on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

Romansch

Alternative forms

• avant (Rumantsch Grischun, Surmiran, Vallader)
• avon (Sursilvan)
• avànt (Sutsilvan)

Etymology

From Late Latin ab ante, from Latin ab + ante, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ent- (“front, forehead”).

Preposition

avaunt

1. (Puter) ago

Related terms

• aunz (“before, beforehand”)