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bunk

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Pronunciation

bunk1 bed, sleeping berth

Etymology

The bed is probably a clipping from English bunker,[2][3][4][5][6] in that word's sense of a seat or bench;[3][4] Dictionary.com calls it a back-formation from that word.[7] The OED considers it of unknown origin, possibly related to bank in the sense "bench", and compares bulk;[8] Hoad and the Oxford Dictionary of English also call the origin unknown, perhaps related to the longer word.[9][10] Skeat compared Old Swedish bunke, the boarding that protected a ship's cargo from the weather,[11][8] and Weekley suggested Dutch bank (“bench”).[12] The longer word is itself recorded from 1758, originally in Scotland, and is of uncertain origin.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A box or recess serving as a bed in a ship's cabin, a sleeping-berth: 1758, in L. Lyon's military journal.[8][3][2]

Semantic evolution

From ships the word spread to berths in railway carriages and lodging houses,[8][4] and the bunk bed is recorded by 1869.[4] In Scotland a bunk was also a chest that served as a seat, and in Perthshire a long wooden seat with a panelled back, which fits the derivation from a word for a bench.[13] In Maine a bunk was from 1770 the timber on a lumberman's sled that supported the ends of heavy logs;[8] Merriam-Webster also records a log car and a feeding trough for cattle.[2] At St Andrews a student's lodging was a bunk from 1891, its landlady the bunk-wife.[8] The verb, to sleep in a bunk, was originally nautical and first appears in 1840 in Dana's Two Years Before the Mast;[8][3][4] it then came to mean sleeping in any rough quarters, also as bunk it or bunk down,[8] and Green's Dictionary of Slang notes its use for sharing a prison cell or barrack room.[14] The bunkhouse for workers is recorded in American English from 1876.[3]

Timeline

  • 1758 – a sleeping-berth.[8][3][2]
  • 1770 – in Maine, a timber on a lumberman's sled.[8]
  • 1840 – the verb, to sleep in a bunk.[8][3][4]
  • 1869 – bunk bed.[4]
  • 1876 – bunkhouse.[3]
  • 1891 – at St Andrews, a student's lodging.[8]
  • 1905 – the verb used transitively in logging.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A narrow bed built into a wall or frame, as on a ship or in a camp, often one of two or more stacked in tiers; a berth.[2][5][8]
  2. Short for bunk bed.[5]
  3. (informal) Any place where one sleeps.[5][2]
  4. A heavy crossbeam on a logging sled or car, on which the logs rest.[2][8]
  5. A long trough for feeding cattle.[2]

Verb

  1. To sleep in a bunk or bed, or in makeshift quarters, often with down: We bunked down in the hayloft.[5][2][8]
  2. To share a bed or room, or stay the night: He bunked with his brother for a week.[2]
  3. To provide with a bunk or sleeping quarters.[5][2]

Word family

  • bunk bed
  • bunkhouse
  • bunkmate
  • bunkroom
  • bunkie

bunk2 make off, run away

Etymology

The verb meaning to make off is of unknown origin.[8][15][9][10] Green's Dictionary of Slang takes it from a Lincolnshire dialect verb meaning to run away.[14] Merriam-Webster suggests it may come from the phrase “bunk across”, to go across by ship,[2] and Collins from the bed, through the idea of a hurried departure as on a ship;[5] Weekley had already wondered whether absconding by sea was the link.[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To run off or escape: 1842, in Egan's ballad “The Bridle Cull”, according to Green's Dictionary of Slang.[14] The OED's first record is in Peacock's glossary of Lincolnshire words (1877).[8]

Semantic evolution

Hotten's slang dictionaries listed the verb from 1864, and a ballad of 1872 has a manager who "bunked across to Spain".[14] The phrase do a bunk, to make off, is recorded from about 1870,[8][2][14] and in 1876 a London paper called "doing a bunk" a slang phrase.[14] In London a bunk was also a street where one could escape pursuit.[14] From 1890 the verb was used transitively at school for "expel".[8][15] The OED records it with about,[8] the Shorter Oxford with off.[15]

Timeline

  • 1842 – to run off, escape.[14]
  • 1864 – in Hotten's slang dictionary.[14]
  • c. 1870 – the phrase do a bunk.[8][2][14]
  • 1877 – the OED's first record of the verb.[8]
  • 1890 – to expel from school.[8][15]

Meanings

Verb

  1. (British slang) To leave in a hurry, especially to escape; to run off, often with off: The boys bunked off before the caretaker came back.[2][15][8][14]
  2. (slang) To expel from school.[8][15]

Noun

  1. do a bunk (chiefly British slang): to make a hurried departure or escape.[2][8][15][14]

bunk3 nonsense

Etymology

Nonsense is a clipping from English bunkum,[8][3][4][16][15][2] and Barnhart allows a remoter link with bunco.[3] The longer word is a respelling of Buncombe, the name of a county in North Carolina:[4][16][8] around 1820 Felix Walker, the congressman for the district that included it, went on with a long and irrelevant speech in the debate on the Missouri question despite calls for the vote, explaining that he was speaking for Buncombe, that is, for the voters at home.[16][4][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Humbug, nonsense: 1900, in George Ade's More Fables,[8][3][2][4] although Green's Dictionary of Slang has an example of 1893 from F. P. Dunne.[14]

Semantic evolution

The longer form is recorded in 1838 for a congressman's home district, and for nonsense from 1841.[4] Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories traces the path from meaningless political claptrap to any insincere talk or action, and notes that the short form appeared about 1900 and is now the usual one.[16] It was also used for shoddy things, often as the bunk, and as an adjective meaning second-rate from 1908;[14] in 1916 H. Ford told the Chicago Tribune that "History is more or less bunk".[14] A slang verb meaning to cheat, also from bunkum, was used by lumbermen for piling wood deceitfully (1877).[14] The verb debunk, to take the nonsense out of something, followed in 1923, in W. E. Woodward's novel Bunk.[8][4]

Timeline

  • 1838 – bunkum, a congressman's home district.[4]
  • 1841 – bunkum, nonsense.[4]
  • 1877 – verb, to cheat.[14]
  • 1893 – bunk, nonsense.[14]
  • 1900 – in George Ade's More Fables.[8][3][2]
  • 1908 – adjective, second-rate.[14]
  • 1923 – debunk.[8][4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (informal) nonsense; humbug: Half of what the advert claims is pure bunk.[2][8][15][14]

Verb

  1. (slang) To fool or deceive.[2][14]

Word family

  • debunk

Usage notes

An obsolete noun bunk of uncertain origin named a plant or root that yielded a drug (1660–1775); the OED compares an Arabic name for a fragrant root.[8] Merriam-Webster gives it the senses chicory and poison hemlock,[2] and in Norfolk and Suffolk dialect bunk named several plants, among them large hollow-stemmed umbellifers and hemlock.[13]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  12. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  13. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  15. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Book of Word Histories, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster