🔍 To find after searching 🐗 To catch animals

to hunt down

148 3.9

Search for and find someone or something after a lot of effort

phrasal verb
/hʌnt daʊn/

: localizar

So this mystery guy, the one who pulled the gun, - should we try to hunt that guy down?

We would meet up, play in our PSPS for hours and hours and hours, hunting down these monsters and hours and hours.

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Examples

We are going to hunt them down wherever they are.
But as in any other crime, it is important to be able to hunt down and secure evidence.

Academic text (2002)
And the search was on to hunt down that that microbe, that was the underlying cause.
But the first ground missions we went on, we had to go up in the mountains or go in the jungles and hunt down the bad guys.
The Persian fleet lined the northern side of the Strait, ready to hunt down Greek ships as they fled.
And Gau Schmidt wrote a book called Alsos about this process of hunting down the German scientists.
The detective worked tirelessly to hunt down the criminal who had evaded capture for years.
After months of searching, the team was finally able to hunt down the missing artifact that had been stolen.
The government launched a campaign to hunt down fugitives who posed a threat to national security.

Synonyms

to find

vsto hunt down

∞ 1.0

To discover something while looking or by accident

requires determined, successful searching rather than accidental discovery

to track down

vsto hunt down

212 3.3

To search for someone or something until you find them

is about searching with determined effort to successfully locate someone

to hunt

vsto hunt down

190 1.2

To look carefully for something or someone

adds the idea of determined effort and successful locating after searching

to seek out

vsto hunt down

122 3.0

Look for and find a person or thing, often with effort

stresses thorough, determined searching until successful discovery

to run down

vsto hunt down

28 5.6

To find the source of something by checking facts

emphasizes active searching and catching rather than fact tracing

to unearth

vsto hunt down

23 4.4

To find hidden facts or things by careful searching

focuses more on active pursuit and capture rather than revealing hidden things

to ferret out

vsto hunt down

Informal

13 6.7

To search carefully to find hidden facts or documents

focuses on determined searching even when target is not hidden

to run to earth

vsto hunt down

8.1

Find and catch someone or something after a long difficult search

means locating after prolonged difficult effort rather than a quick search

to rout out

vsto hunt down

5.5

To find something after a careful search

focuses on thorough searching but less on the final capture

to rout up

vsto hunt down

8.4

Find something after searching carefully

emphasizes pursuing until finding rather than only discovering by search

Antonyms

to ignore

∞ 1.0

Choose not to pay attention to someone or something

How Thorough

to hunt down

148 3.9

to track down

212 3.3

to search

∞ 1.0

to look for

∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

hunt down infinitive

hunted down past

hunted down past participle

hunting down present participle

hunts down third person singular

Morphology

hunt + down

The meaning 'to search for and successfully find' is largely derivable from 'hunt' (to search) combined with 'down' adding a sense of bringing/capturing or completion. However, 'down' as a particle conveying successful capture is somewhat metaphorical and phrasal-verb patterns vary, so a B1 learner who only knows the individual words may not fully predict the exact nuance without exposure.

Etymology

Hunt down comes from the picture of trackers following footprints and clues until they find and stop a person or thing; imagine searching every place until you finally catch it. So it means 'to search for and successfully find someone or something after a lot of effort'.