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Etymology and origin of the English word bunt

Pronunciation

bunt1 middle of a sail or net

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1582 a Cotton manuscript
Borrowed from
Low German bunt

Etymology

The word for the middle of a sail or net is of unknown origin according to the OED, the Shorter Oxford, the Concise Oxford and Hoad.[2][3][4][5] Merriam-Webster Unabridged takes it as perhaps borrowed from Low German bunt (“bundle”), from Middle Low German, akin to byndel, the source of bundle.[6][7] The American Heritage Dictionary instead suggests Swedish bunt or Danish bundt, both of Low German origin,[8] and Klein relates it to these and to Middle Dutch bont, Middle High German bunt and German Bund, all meaning "bundle".[9] The OED notes that the Danish and Swedish words seem to be merely from German.[2] Weekley thought it a corruption of a Swedish word for a bend or bulge,[10] and Johnson reported Skinner's view that it was a corruption of bent.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The middle part of a sail, shaped into a bag so that the sail catches more wind: about 1582, in a Cotton manuscript.[2] The Shorter Oxford and the Concise Oxford date the word to the late 16th century,[3][4] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to about 1582.[6]

Semantic evolution

From 1602, in Carew's Survey of Cornwall, the word also named the bag-shaped part of a fishing net, of a napkin tied as a bag, or the funnel of an eel trap.[2][3] Johnson (1755) defined it as a swelling part or a growing cavity, quoting a description of a fishing weir with a bunt or cod where the fish are caught.[11] A verb, to haul up the middle of a sail in furling, followed in 1611, in Cotgrave's dictionary; from 1681 the verb was also used of a sail swelling or bellying.[2][3] The buntline, a rope that keeps the bunt from bulging when the sail is furled, is recorded from 1627, in J. Smith's Sea Grammar.[2][3] In 1882 the word was also used for the middle part of a yard.[2] In Cornwall it kept its nautical sense into the 19th century.[12]

Timeline

  • c. 1582 – the middle part of a sail.[2]
  • 1602 – the bag-shaped part of a fishing net.[2]
  • 1611 – verb, to haul up the middle of a sail in furling.[2][3]
  • 1681 – verb, of a sail, to swell or belly.[2][3]
  • 1882 – the middle part of a yard.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The middle part of a square sail, especially the part gathered up at the centre of the yard when the sail is furled.[6][2][3]
  2. The central, bag-shaped part of a fishing net.[6][2][3]

Verb

  1. To haul up the middle part of a sail in furling.[2][3]
  2. Of a sail, to swell or belly.[2][3]

Word family

  • buntline

bunt2 smut disease of wheat

Confidence
Unknown
First attested
1601 P. Holland, translation of Pliny

Etymology

The word for the smut disease of wheat is of unknown origin.[2][6][3][9][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The puffball fungus: 1601, in P. Holland's translation of Pliny.[2][13] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1595–1605 and also says it first meant a puffball.[14]

Semantic evolution

The puffball sense survived in dialect until the late 19th century.[2][3] From 1800 the word named a parasitic fungus, Tilletia caries, which fills the grains of wheat with a black, foul-smelling powder, and the disease it causes;[2][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates this sense to about 1790.[6] In Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire it was the usual dialect word for the smut in wheat.[12] The disease is also called stinking smut.[6][14]

Timeline

  • 1601 – the puffball fungus (now obsolete or dialect).[2][3]
  • 1800 – a smut fungus attacking wheat, and the disease it causes.[2][3] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to about 1790.[6]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A destructive smut disease of wheat, caused by fungi of the genus Tilletia, in which the grains are replaced by masses of foul-smelling spores; also called stinking smut.[6][14][2]
  2. (obsolete) The puffball fungus.[2][3]

bunt3 push, butt; baseball tap

Confidence
Probable
First attested
1767 Boston Gazette
Ultimate origin
Anglo-Norman buter
Etymology tree of bunt3
inherited borrowed derived
English butt
English bunt
From the same root · bunt3
English buttock ← butt

Etymology

The word for a push with the head, and for the baseball stroke, is probably from English an alteration of butt, to strike with the head.[6][15][4][13] Etymonline suggests an alteration of butt with a goat in mind, or a survival of Middle English bounten (“to leap back, return”), perhaps from a variant of Old French bondir.[16] The OED calls it of uncertain origin, comparing butt, bunch and bounce, and finds a connection with Breton bounta, used in the same sense, scarcely possible.[2] Wiktionary takes it as perhaps a nasalized variant of butt,[1] Partridge as apparently echoic,[17] and Hoad as of unknown origin.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A push with the head or horns, of a goat or calf: the noun, 1767, in the Boston Gazette.[2][16][6] The verb, to strike or push, is recorded in the OED from 1825, in a Wiltshire glossary,[2][16][15] but Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates it to 1584, and the OED notes that its 1584 quotation for the adjective bunting may be earlier evidence for the verb.[6][2] Barnhart remarks that the noun is recorded some 60 years before the verb.[15]

Semantic evolution

In English dialect the verb, to push or butt with the head, horns or feet, was widespread in the Midlands and the South in the 19th century,[12] and Grose's slang dictionary of the 1780s recorded it for jostling against someone.[18] In American baseball, from 1889 (in the Chicago Tribune), it came to mean stopping the ball with the bat without swinging, both as noun and as verb.[2][16][15] The noun was also applied from 1932 to an aerobatic manoeuvre, half an outside loop followed by a half roll,[2] and Collins records the verb for making an aircraft fly in such a loop.[19]

Timeline

  • 1767 – noun, a push with the head or horns.[2][16]
  • 1825 – verb, to strike, knock, push or butt.[2][16][15]
  • 1889 – baseball, to stop the ball with the bat without swinging; noun, such a stroke.[2][16][15]
  • 1932 – an aerobatic manoeuvre, half an outside loop followed by a half roll.[2]

Meanings

Verb

  1. In baseball, to tap a pitched ball gently with the bat, without swinging, so that it rolls slowly into the infield: With a runner on first, the pitcher bunted.[8][6][4][19]
  2. In baseball, to move a base runner forward, or bring in a run, by bunting.[8][13]
  3. To push or strike with the head or horns; to butt.[8][6][19][2]
  4. To make an aircraft fly in part of an inverted loop.[19]

Noun

  1. In baseball, an act of bunting, or a ball that has been bunted.[6][8][4]
  2. A push or shove, especially with the head.[6][2]
  3. In aerobatics, a manoeuvre of half an outside loop followed by a half roll.[2]

Word family

  • bunter
  • drag bunt

Usage notes

Several other words spelled bunt are recorded in dialect: the tail of a hare or rabbit, perhaps the older form of bun (from 1805, in Scotland and Lincolnshire),[2][6][12] a medium kind of faggot (from 1884, in Sussex and Hampshire),[2][12] and a verb, to sift meal, recorded once in 1340 and of unknown origin.[2][12] In old thieves' slang bunt was an apron, apparently from the bag of a fishing net (1703).[18]

References

  1. ^ a b 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 w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  4. ^ a b c d e Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  7. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
  8. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  9. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  11. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  12. ^ a b c d e f 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)
  13. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  14. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  15. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  16. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  17. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  18. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  19. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins

Related etymologies

  • slur · also from Low German
  • smuggle · also from Low German
  • huddle · also from Low German
  • spar · also from Low German
  • wrangle · also from Low German
  • clump · also from Low German
  • smuggler · also from Low German
  • wobble · also from Low German
Cite this entry

“Bunt.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/bunt. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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