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 (plural bunks)

1. One of a series of berths or beds placed in tiers.
   • 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, […]

   Jane sleeps in the top bunk, and her little sister Lauren takes the bottom bunk.

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

2. (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. (Britain) 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 54130892, 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 (2001–2023), “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, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

• knub

Probably onomatopoeic.

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