HAUNCH

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does haunch mean? 

• HAUNCH (noun)
  The noun HAUNCH has 2 senses:

1. the hip and buttock and upper thigh in human beings

2. the loin and leg of a quadruped

  Familiarity information: HAUNCH used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• HAUNCH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The hip and buttock and upper thigh in human beings

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Hypernyms ("haunch" is a kind of...):

body part (any part of an organism such as an organ or extremity)

Holonyms ("haunch" is a part of...):

body; torso; trunk (the body excluding the head and neck and limbs)

Sense 2

Meaning:

The loin and leg of a quadruped

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("haunch" is a kind of...):

croup; croupe; hindquarters; rump (the part of an animal that corresponds to the human buttocks)

Holonyms ("haunch" is a part of...):

quadruped (an animal especially a mammal having four limbs specialized for walking)

 Context examples 

The venison was roasted to a turn—and everybody said they never saw so fat a haunch.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

He sat down abruptly on his haunches, thrusting his nose upward, the mouth opening and closing with jerking movements, each time opening wider.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Their mangers were placed circular in the middle of the room, and divided into several partitions, round which they sat on their haunches, upon bosses of straw.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

As it was, it was not the powerful haunch of the black leader which caught our wheel, but the forequarter, which had not weight enough to turn us from our course.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Only thirteen days after, a haunch of prime venison was carried from my very tent door by the wolves, and on the same day two flasks of old vernage turned sour and muddy.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Looking down I saw a stately carriage and pair, the brilliant lamps gleaming on the glossy haunches of the noble chestnuts.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When I went to dinner next day, and on the street door being opened, plunged into a vapour-bath of haunch of mutton, I divined that I was not the only guest, for I immediately identified the ticket-porter in disguise, assisting the family servant, and waiting at the foot of the stairs to carry up my name.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

As he drew closer to the cry he went more slowly, with caution in every movement, till he came to an open place among the trees, and looking out saw, erect on haunches, with nose pointed to the sky, a long, lean, timber wolf.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The soup would be sent round in a most spiritless manner, wine drank without any smiles or agreeable trifling, and the venison cut up without supplying one pleasant anecdote of any former haunch, or a single entertaining story, about my friend such a one.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)