hunch

Etymology

The word is of unknown origin.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The OED compares the verb hinch, and Dictionary.com takes it as apparently a variant of that obsolete word for "push, shove";^[2][7] Etymonline suggests that it may be a variant of bunch.^[8] The sense "hump" first appears in hunchbacked, which the second Quarto of Shakespeare's “Richard III” (1598) prints for the usual bunch-backed,^[2][6][9] and the OED and Barnhart doubt that the "push" and "hump" senses belong to one word.^[2][6] If they do, the OED suggests a development from thrusting out to forming a protuberance.^[2] Hoad groups it with hunchbacked and the synonymous bunch-backed and hulch-backed;^[10] Skeat took it as a palatalized form of dialect hunk, parallel to hump,^[11] and Klein as an alteration of hump.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

To push, thrust, shove: 1581, in Richard Vaux's translation of Calvin's commentary on Galatians.^[2] Barnhart dates this sense probably before 1500,^[6] the Shorter Oxford to the late 15th century,^[13] and Etymonline to about 1500.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The old sense of pushing is now Scots and dialectal in the noun and American dialect in the verb.^[5][2][13] The verb meant to bend or arch the back into a hump from 1679, in Dryden and Lee's Oedipus,^[2] which Barnhart dates 1678,^[6] although hunchbacked has the idea from 1598.^[2][6] Johnson (1755) knew only the verb, which he defined as "to strike or punch with the fists" and "to crook the back".^[14][2] The noun meant a push from 1630,^[2][8][6] a hump from 1803,^[2] and a thick piece or lump from 1790, a sense that may belong to a separate word, like hunk.^[2][13] In American English the pushing sense led to "a hint, a tip" (1849) and then to "a premonition, an intuitive feeling" (1904);^[6][8][2] the Oxford Dictionary of English traces this to an American sense of the verb, to nudge someone to draw their attention to something,^[5] which the OED records from before 1852.^[2] In English dialects a hunch was a lump or a large slice of food, and in Lincolnshire the adjective hunch meant harsh, unkind or cold.^[15]

Timeline

• 1581 – to push, thrust, shove.^[2]
• 1598 – the compound hunchbacked, in Shakespeare's Richard III.^[2][6]
• 1630 – noun, a push, a thrust.^[2][6]
• 1679 – to bend or arch into a hump.^[2] Barnhart dates it 1678.^[6]
• 1712 – hunchback, a back-formation from hunchbacked.^[6][2]
• 1790 – a thick piece, a lump.^[2]
• 1803 – a hump.^[2]
• 1849 – a hint, a tip.^[2][6][8]
• before 1852 – to nudge someone to draw their attention (US).^[2]
• 1904 – a premonition, an intuitive feeling.^[2][6][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. An intuitive feeling or guess that something is true or will happen: I had a hunch the train would be late.^[16][2]
2. A hump.^[16][2]
3. A thick piece; a lump or hunk: a hunch of cheese.^[16][2][13]
4. (dialect) A push or shove.^[2][13][4]

Verb

1. To bend or draw up the back or shoulders into a hump: She hunched her shoulders against the wind.^[16][2][4]
2. To sit or stand bent over, usually with up or over.^[16][4]
3. (dialect, US) To push or thrust; to move forward with a push.^[4][2][13]

Word family

• hunchbacked
• hunchback

Related words

• hunk
• bunch
• haunch

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 w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
8. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ 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)
16. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins