Meanings
plural personhunts
- rareA manhunt.
The chief investigator on this massive personhunt is Sergeant Ogiv Fenlocki.
1991, Peter R. Emshwiller, The Host, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →ISBN, page 1653 more examples
The Panther Sentinel is lauching^([sic]) a mass personhunt in an effort to recruit photographers and writers.
1977 September 23, Panther Sentinel, 47th year, number 2, Salinas, Calif.: Hartnell College, page 3When I was in college one of my old high school girlfriends ritually slaughtered her infant child, and was consequently the subject of a thirteen-state personhunt.
1986 March, Mark Brown, “Panegyric”, in Oh No! Noho!, number 10 / volume 2, number 4, Northampton, Mass., page 5, column 1No matter how out of sight the Londonmancers were, obscured by the matter of the city of which they were functions, Billy and Dane were the targets of the greatest personhunt in memory, and they could not risk bringing that sort of attention to the enjarred god.
2010, China Miéville, Kraken: An Anatomy, London: Macmillan, →ISBN, page 349
Origin
From person + hunt, after manhunt. Coined as a gender-neutral alternative.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
personhunt. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/personhunt
“personhunt.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/personhunt. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “personhunt,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/personhunt.
Source: personhunt on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.