avaunt

English

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

avaunt

(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!"

avaunt (plural avaunts)

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

(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
(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.
(archaic) To vaunt; to boast.

avaunt

avaunt