bunk

• enPR: bŭngk, IPA^(key): /bʌŋk/

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• Rhymes: -ʌŋk

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:

     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. (US) A wooden case or box, which serves for a seat in the daytime and for a bed at night.
5. (US, dialect) A piece of wood placed on a lumberman's sled to sustain the end of heavy timbers.

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) Bunkum; senseless talk, nonsense.

   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$ (lyrics and music), “Toledo 2 Flint”, in The World is Yours‎, 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

• debunk

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. (British, India) To fail to attend school or work without permission; to play truant (usually as in 'to bunk off').

   The naughty boys decided to bunk school and visit the comic shop.

2. (dated) To expel from a school.
   • 1945, Evelyn Waugh, chapter 4, in Brideshead Revisited […], 3rd edition, London: Chapman & Hall, →OCLC, book 1 (Et in Arcadia Ego), pages 83–84:

     She was bunked from the convent last term. I don't quite know what for.

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. […] "

• bunker

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “bunk”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
• “bunk”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• knub

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

• IPA^(key): /bʊŋk/

bunk

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

• Kathleen A. Browne (1927) The Journal of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland Sixth Series, Vol.17 No.2, Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland, page 136