bunker
English
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈbʌŋk.əː/
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈbʌŋk.ɚ/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ʌŋkə(ɹ)
- Hyphenation: bunk‧er
Etymology 1


The origin of the noun is uncertain;[1] the earliest sense is sense 6.1 (“box or chest, the lid of which serves as a seat”), from Scots bunker (“bench; pew; window-seat; sand pit (especially in golf); coal receptacle; sleeping berth, bunk”), probably from Old Norse bunki (“a heap”) (probably whence bunk (“sleeping berth in a ship, train, etc.”)),[2][3] from Proto-Germanic *bunkô (“a heap, pile; a bump, lump, a crowd”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ- (“thick”) or *bʰeg- (“to billow, swell; to arch, bend, curve (?)”). Sense 1 (“hardened shelter designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks”) was derived from German Bunker during World War II, which was itself from bunker (“large bin or container for storing coal”) (sense 5).
The verb is derived from the noun.[4]
Noun
bunker (plural bunkers)
- (military) A hardened shelter, often partly buried or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks.
- (nautical) A container for storing coal or fuel oil for a ship's engine; (by extension) the quantity of fuel needed to replenish that container.
- (rail transport) The coal compartment on a tank engine.
- 1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in The Railway Magazine, Westminster, London: IPC Transport Press, ISSN 0033-8923, OCLC 1065264231, page 161:
- Among tank engines, the 0-6-2 wheel arrangement was by far the most numerous, there being nearly 450 of this arrangement, which offers the advantage of good power and adhesive weight, coupled with adequate tank and bunker capacity, within a limited compass.
- 1941 December, “Notes and News: A Tank Engine's 241-mile Day”, in Railway Magazine, page 569:
- The bunkers of these engines hold enough coal for one round journey of 120½ miles, and water is taken in each direction at Hexham.
-
- (sports)
- (golf) A hazard on a golf course consisting of a sand-filled hollow.
- 1824 June, [Walter Scott], “Letter X. Darsie Latimer to Alan Fairford.”; “Letter XI. The Same to the Same.”, in Redgauntlet, […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., OCLC 926803915, pages 204 and 223:
- [Letter X, page 204] At length I came within sight of them, three in number, where they sat cosily niched, into what you might call a bunker, a little sand-pit, dry and snug, and surrounded by its banks, and a screen of whins in full bloom. […] [Letter XI, page 223] And are ye in the wont of drawing up wi' all the gangrel bodies that ye meet on the high road, or find cowering in a sand-bunker upon the links?
-
- (paintball) An obstacle used to block an opposing player's view and field of fire.
- (golf) A hazard on a golf course consisting of a sand-filled hollow.
- (Britain, chiefly historical) A large bin or container for storing coal, often built outdoors in the yard of a house.
- (Scotland)
- A sort of box or chest, as in a window, the lid of which serves as a seat.
- 1790 (date written; published 1791), Robert Burns, “Tam o’ Shanter. A Tale.”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, volume II, 2nd edition, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, OCLC 860627146, page 202:
- A winnock-bunker in the eaſt, / There ſat auld Nick, in ſhape o' beaſt; […]
- 1818 July 25, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Tales of My Landlord, Second Series, […] (The Heart of Mid-Lothian), volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Company, OCLC 819902302, page 234:
- There was no seat accommodated him so well as the "bunker" at Woodend, and no face he loved so much to gaze on as Jeanie Deans's.
-
- (slang) A kitchen worktop.
- A sort of box or chest, as in a window, the lid of which serves as a seat.
Derived terms
- bunkerage
- bunker barge
- bunker buster
- bunker-busting
- bunker fuel
- bunkering
- bunkerman
- bunker mentality
- bunker oil
- Diefenbunker
Translations
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Verb
bunker (third-person singular simple present bunkers, present participle bunkering, simple past and past participle bunkered)

- (transitive)
- (nautical)
- (sports)
- (golf) To hit (a golf ball) into a bunker; (chiefly passive) to place (a golfer) in the position of having a golf ball in a bunker.
- (by extension, Britain, informal) To place (someone) in a position that is difficult to get out of; to hinder.
- 1928 December (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, The Apple Cart: A Political Extravaganza, London: Constable and Company, published 1930, OCLC 1123658692, Act I, page 18:
- Proteus. Or we resign and tell the country that we cant carry on the King's Government under conditions which destroy our responsibility. / Balbus. Thatll do it. He couldnt face that. / Crassus. Yes: thatll bunker him.
-
- (by extension, Britain, informal) To place (someone) in a position that is difficult to get out of; to hinder.
- (paintball) To fire constantly at (an opponent hiding behind an obstacle), trapping them and preventing them from firing at other players; also, to eliminate (an opponent behind an obstacle) by rushing to the position and firing at extremely close range as the player becomes exposed.
- (golf) To hit (a golf ball) into a bunker; (chiefly passive) to place (a golfer) in the position of having a golf ball in a bunker.
- (intransitive)
Derived terms
Translations
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Etymology 2
From bunk (“to fail to attend school or work without permission, to play truant”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns indicating a person or thing that does an action).
Translations
Etymology 3

Clipping of mossbunker,[5] a variant of mossbanker, from Dutch marsbanker (“common scad or Atlantic horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus)”), from Marsdiep (“deep tide-race between Den Helder and Texel in the Netherlands”) + bank (“shallow part of the sea near a coast”) + -er (suffix forming nouns denoting male inhabitants of a place).
Noun
bunker (plural bunkers)
Translations
References
- “bunker, n.1”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, September 2021.
- “bunker, n.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, OCLC 57069714, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.
- “bunker, n.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “bunker, v.”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2020; “bunker, v.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
- “bunker, n.2”, in OED Online
, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, March 2018.
Further reading
bunker on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
fuel bunker on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
menhaden on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Brevoortia on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
Brevoortia on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
Ethmidium on Wikimedia Commons.Wikimedia Commons
Ethmidium on Wikispecies.Wikispecies
bunker (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Dutch
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈbʏŋ.kər/
Audio (file) - Hyphenation: bun‧ker
- Rhymes: -ʏŋkər
Noun
Derived terms
French
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /buŋ.kɛʁ/, /buŋ.kœʁ/
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bœŋ.kœʁ/
Further reading
- “bunker”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Indonesian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): [ˈbʊŋkər]
- Hyphenation: bung‧kêr
Noun
bunkêr (plural bunker-bunker, first-person possessive bunkerku, second-person possessive bunkermu, third-person possessive bunkernya)
Alternative forms
- bunker, bangker, banker
Further reading
- “bunker” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Language Development and Fostering Agency — Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic Indonesia, 2016.
Norwegian Bokmål
Derived terms
Related terms
- bunkers (fuel oil, military bunker)
Norwegian Nynorsk
Derived terms
Related terms
- bunkers (fuel oil, militsry bunker)
Portuguese
Alternative forms
References
- “bunker” in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa. Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2023.
- “bunker” in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa.
Serbo-Croatian
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /bǔnker/
- Hyphenation: bun‧ker
Noun
bùnker m (Cyrillic spelling бу̀нкер)
Declension
singular | plural | |
---|---|---|
nominative | bunker | bunkeri |
genitive | bunkera | bunkera |
dative | bunkeru | bunkerima |
accusative | bunker | bunkere |
vocative | bunkeru | bunkeri |
locative | bunkeru | bunkerima |
instrumental | bunkerom | bunkerima |
Swedish
Declension
Declension of bunker | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Singular | Plural | |||
Indefinite | Definite | Indefinite | Definite | |
Nominative | bunker | bunkern | bunkrar | bunkrarna |
Genitive | bunkers | bunkerns | bunkrars | bunkrarnas |