在大事面前先矮了一截
核心畫面最直接的用法：那件事站在人前面，人身上的勁被馴掉一半，還沒開始就想退。
verb · C1
To make someone feel afraid or unsure of themselves, so that a job, a place or an idea starts to look too big or too hard to take on.
使人卻步
核心畫面
Picture the moment before you start something. The thing stands in front of you — a list, a mountain path, a new office, a first day — and it looks larger than you are. Nothing has hurt you and nothing is going to. What has happened is that the fight has quietly gone out of you. The old root under daunt is the word for taming an animal, which fits: the creature is still standing there, it has just stopped pulling.
daunt 的畫面可以想成「開始之前的那一秒」。事情站在你面前——一張清單、一條陡坡、一間新辦公室、上班第一天——它…更多收起
daunt 的畫面可以想成「開始之前的那一秒」。事情站在你面前——一張清單、一條陡坡、一間新辦公室、上班第一天——它看起來比你大。沒有人傷得了你，也不會有事。變的只是你身上那股勁悄悄洩了。daunt 底下的老字是「馴服動物」的意思，剛好對得上：那隻動物還站在那裡，只是不再往前拉了。From the word’s history
Wiktionary takes daunt back through Middle English daunten to Old French danter, donter 'to tame', and to Latin domāre 'to tame, conquer'. The modern feeling keeps the picture: the person is not removed, only tamed — the confidence has been taken out of them.
Wiktionary 把 daunt 追到中古英文 daunten，再到古法文 danter、donter（馴服），最上面是拉丁文 domāre（馴服、征服）。今天的用法還留著這個畫面：人沒有被移走，只是被馴住了——被拿掉的是那股信心。
Wiktionary entry for daunt, packet etymology_text (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:615317170:17855)
Two branches
反過來說：什麼都沒把他馴住
同一個畫面，只是整個否定掉。核心是「那股勁被馴掉」，這裡是「一點也沒被馴掉」，所以聽起來是在誇人。
verb · C2
Used as a short aside to say that someone went on with what they were doing, or started something new, even though it was hard or had just gone badly.
毫不氣餒（地）
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Dauntname
- 1
A surname from Middle English.
dauntverb/dɔːnt/
- 1
To discourage, intimidate.
- [The English] valiantly, and with the ſlaughter of many, put backe the enemy: which was ſo farre from daunting the Normans, that by it they were more whetted to re-enforce themſelues vpon them[…]
- Death I'll meet, my soul no terrors daunting, Take the life for which thy heart is panting, Spare not thou, though he spare, his life granting, Or let death end us both at a blow.
- 2
To overwhelm.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。