bunk - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Sense of sleeping berth possibly from Scottish English bunker (“seat, bench”), origin is uncertain but possibly Scandinavian Compare Old Swedish bunke (“boards used to protect the cargo of a ship”). See also boarding, flooring and compare bunch.

Bunk bed

bunk (plural bunks)

  1. One of a series of berths or beds placed in tiers.
    Jane sleeps in the top bunk, and her little sister Lauren takes the bottom bunk.
    • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 6, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎[1]:
      The men resided in a huge bunk house, which consisted of one room only, with a shack outside where the cooking was done. In the large room were a dozen bunks ; half of them in a very dishevelled state, […]
  2. (nautical) A built-in bed on board ship, often erected in tiers one above the other.
  3. (military) A cot.
  4. (informal) A bed in a prison, worksite or similar location.
  5. (US) A wooden case or box, which serves for a seat in the daytime and for a bed at night.
  6. (US, dialect) A piece of wood placed on a lumberman's sled to sustain the end of heavy timbers.
  7. (Singapore, military, by extension) A dormitory or bunkroom where soldiers sleep.
    Don’t leave your bunk unlocked.

one of a series of berth in tiers

built-in bed on board a ship

bunk (third-person singular simple present bunks, present participle bunking, simple past and past participle bunked)

  1. To occupy a bunk.
    Due to bed shortages, Jeff and Paul had to bunk together.
  2. To provide a bunk.

Shortened from bunkum, a variant of buncombe, from Buncombe County, North Carolina. See bunkum for more.

bunk (uncountable)

  1. (slang, dated) Bunkum; senseless talk, nonsense.
    Synonym: hokum
    What she said about me was total bunk. Don't believe a word.
    • 1927, Arthur Train, When Tutt Meets Tutt, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, page 47:
      “You can’t pull any bunk like that on us!” roared Quelch. “We’ve had enough of this flapdoodlery! Take your money, Mrs. Clinton, and sign the deed.”
  2. (obsolete) In early use often in the form the bunk. [1900-1927]
    • 1927 January 30, Randall Faye, 1:45 from the start, in Upstream, spoken by Eric Brasingham (Earle Foxe), Fox Film Corporation:
      This knife-throwing act is the bunk
  3. (slang) A specimen of a recreational drug with insufficient active ingredient.
    • 2020 July 18, Rio Da Yung OG, featured by T LB$, “Toledo 2 Flint”, in The World is Yours‎[2], 1:26–1:28:
      I still can get off with a pound of bunk and pretend it's some Runtz

bunk (not comparable)

  1. (slang) Defective, broken, not functioning properly.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:nonsense

nonsense

19th century, of uncertain origin; perhaps from previous "to occupy a bunk" meaning, with connotations of a hurried departure, as if on a ship.

bunk (third-person singular simple present bunks, present participle bunking, simple past and past participle bunked)

  1. (UK, India, slang) To fail to attend school or work without permission; to play truant (usually 'to bunk off').
    The naughty boys decided to bunk school and visit the comic shop.
  2. (UK, dated, slang) To expel from a school.
  3. (slang) To depart; scram.
    • 1907, Edith Nesbit, The Enchanted Castle:
      "They're moving off," he said. " […] [T]he funny little man with the beard like a goat is going a different way from everyone else — the gardeners will have to head him off. I don't see Mademoiselle, though. The rest of you had better bunk. […] "

bunk (plural bunks)

  1. (slang) A hasty departure.
    • 1934, Ernest Bramah, The Bravo of London:
      You may well say chance it, lad. From what I see and what I hear it seems to be getting a pretty near thing which side touches down first, but the old geezer's dead set on going through whatever turns up, and God knows that if it comes to a general bunk he's bound to be the hindmost.

Probably onomatopoeic or perhaps related to Middle English *bumpe (“bump”), perhaps via a diminutive *bunke, *bumpke.

bunk

  1. A light blow from an animal's head.