bunker

Etymology

It is borrowed from Scots bonker (“a chest or box, often serving as a seat”),^[2][3][4][5] a word recorded from the 16th century as boncure and in other spellings.^[6][7] Its further origin is uncertain.^{[8][9][10][7]} Barnhart, Etymonline and Merriam-Webster connect it with banker, a bench or a covering for one, recorded from the 1670s.^[10][9][2] Etymonline also suggests a Scandinavian source, comparing Old Swedish bunke (“boards protecting a ship's cargo”),^[9] and the American Heritage Dictionary too calls it perhaps Scandinavian.^[5] Weekley notes Norwegian bunke and Danish bunke, a heap or cargo, earlier also a ship's hold.^[11] The OED and the Oxford Dictionary of English compare bunk,^[8][12] while Klein and Partridge relate it to bench.^[13][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

A seat or bench, in Scotland one that also served as a chest: before 1758, in A. Ramsay's Poems.^[8][10][9] The Shorter Oxford and the Oxford Dictionary of English date the Scots word to the mid 16th century.^[7][12]

Semantic evolution

An earthen seat or bank in the fields is recorded in 1805, in Jamieson's Scots dictionary.^[8][9] Etymonline derives from this the golfing sense, a sandy hollow on the links, which first appears in 1824 in Scott's Redgauntlet;^[9][8][10] later it was any artificial sand-pit or obstacle on a course.^[8] A receptacle for coal on board ship is recorded from 1839,^[8][9] and the verb, to fill a ship's bunkers with coal or oil, from 1891.^[8][2] The golfing verb to be bunkered (1886) was used figuratively from 1894 of being caught in a difficult situation.^[8] The military sense, a dugout or a reinforced concrete shelter, is first recorded in 1939, but Barnhart and Etymonline think it probably goes back to the First World War.^[8][10][9] In Scotland, Ireland, Northumberland and Durham the dialect word still meant a chest, a window-seat that opens as a chest, or a settle.^[15]

Timeline

• mid 16th century – a seat or bench, in Scots.^[7][12]
• before 1758 – a seat or bench serving also as a chest.^[8][10]
• 1805 – an earthen seat or bank in the fields.^[8][9]
• 1824 – golf: a sandy hollow on the links.^[8][9][10]
• 1839 – a receptacle for coal on board ship.^[8][9]
• 1886 – verb, golf: of a ball or player, to be in a bunker.^[8]
• 1891 – verb, to fill the bunkers of a steamer with coal or oil.^[8][2]
• 1939 – a military dugout; a reinforced concrete shelter.^[8][10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A strongly built shelter, mostly underground and often of reinforced concrete, giving protection from bombs or gunfire.^[4][2][8]
2. In golf, a hollow filled with sand, used as an obstacle on a course; in the US also called a sand trap.^[4][8]
3. A large bin or storage container, especially a compartment on a ship for its coal or oil.^[4][2][8]
4. (Scottish) A chest or box that also serves as a seat.^[2][8][15]

Verb

1. To fill a ship's bunker with fuel, or to take on fuel.^[2][8][4]
2. In golf, to hit a ball into a bunker.^[2][4][8]
3. To put in a situation that is hard to get out of.^[8][2]

Word family

• bunkered
• bunkerage
• bunkering
• bunker mentality
• bunker oil

Related words

• bunk
• banker
• bench

Usage notes

In the United States bunker is also a name for the menhaden, a shortening of mossbunker recorded from 1842; it has a separate source.^[8][2]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
4. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
5. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
14. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
15. ^ 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)