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''haunch'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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''haunch'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260218114101-00-⌔

haunch - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

haunch (plural haunches)

  • (anatomy) The area encompassing the upper thigh, hip and buttocks on one side of a human, primate, or quadruped animal, especially one that can sit on its hindquarters.
    • ✤ But I had no time to pursue these reflections; for the gray horse came to the door, and made me a sign to follow him into the third room where I saw a very comely mare, together with a colt and foal, sitting on their haunches upon mats of straw, not unartfully made, and perfectly neat and clean.1
    • ✤ And the rabbit from his path-way
      Leaped aside, and at a distance
      Sat erect upon his haunches.      2
    • ✤ While Heracles, - the thews and cordage of his thighs
      Straitened and strained beyond the utmost stretch
      From quivering heel to haunch like sweating hawsers.      3
    • ✤ The fog comes on little cat feet.
      It sits looking over harbor and city
      on silent haunches and then moves on.      4
    • ✤ He [Novak Djokovic] dropped to his haunches just inside the baseline as Centre Court rose to acclaim the champion, hugging South African[Kevin] Anderson at the net before skipping over towards his box and celebrating wildly in front of his coaching team and wife Jelena.5
  • The loin and leg of a quadruped, especially when used as food.
    • ✤ Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they;/But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is—Obey!6
    • ✤ On the rough-hewn oaken table the venison haunch was shared.7
  • (architecture) A squat vertical support structure.
  • (dialect) A jerked underhand throw.

Verb

haunch (third-person singular simple present haunches, present participle haunching, simple past and past participle haunched)

  • (transitive, architecture) To provide with a haunch or supporting structure.
  • (transitive, dialect) To throw with an underhand movement.

Etymology

From Middle English haunche, hanche, from Old French hanche, hance, anche (compare French hanche, Italian anca), from a Germanic source, probably Frankish ﹡ankijā, from Proto-Germanic ﹡ankijǭ (“joint; ankle”), from Proto-Indo-European ﹡ang- (“joint; lith”). Cognate with Old High German ancha, encha, einka (“the leg; joint, bend”) (compare Old High German anchila, enchila (“ankle”), German Hanke (“haunch”), West Frisian hancke (“haunch”). More at ankle.

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /hɔːn(t)ʃ/
  • (Standard Southern British) IPA: /hoːn(t)ʃ/
    • Audio (Australian): 🔊
  • (US)
    • (without the cot–caught merger) enPR: hônch, -sh, IPA: /hɔn(t)ʃ/
    • (cot–caught merger) enPR: hänch, -sh, IPA: /hɑn(t)ʃ/
      • Audio (US, cot–caught merger): 🔊
  • (Scotland) IPA: /hɔn(t)ʃ/
  • Rhymes: -ɔːntʃ, -ɒntʃ

Printed 2026-06-28.

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Footnotes

  1. 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume II, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part IV (A Voyage to the Houyhnhnms): ↩

  2. 1855 November 10, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “chapter III”, in The Song of Hiawatha, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor and Fields, →OCLC: ↩

  3. 1916, Wilfred Owen, The Wrestlers: ↩

  4. c. 1918, Carl Sandburg, Fog: ↩

  5. 2018 July 15, Jonathan Jurejko, “Novak Djokovic Wins Fourth Wimbledon by Beating Kevin Anderson”, in BBC Sport ‎, archived from the original on 14 February 2019: ↩

  6. 1895 November, Rudyard Kipling, “The Law of the Jungle”, in The Second Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 25: ↩

  7. a. 1892, John Greenleaf Whittier, The Garrison of Cape Ann: ↩

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