bunch

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a grouping of a number of similar things

   a bunch of trees

2. 2
   verb

   to gather or cause to gather into a cluster

   I bunched my fingers into a fist.

3. 3
   verb

   to form into a bunch

   The frightened children bunched together in the corner of the classroom.

4. 4
   noun

   A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.

   a bunch of grapes

5. 5
   noun

   An informal body of friends.

   He still hangs out with the same bunch.

6. 6
   noun

   A considerable amount.

   a bunch of trouble

7. 7
   noun

   An unmentioned amount; a number.

   A bunch of them went down to the field.

8. 8
   noun

   An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.

   The ore may be disseminated throughout the matrix in minute particles, as gold in quartz; in parallel threads, strings, and plates, as with copper; in irregular pockets or bunches

Etymology

From Middle English bunche, bonche (“hump, swelling”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps a variant of *bunge (compare dialectal bung (“heap, grape bunch”)), from Proto-Germanic *bunkō, *bunkô, *bungǭ (“heap, crowd”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ-, *bʰénǵʰus (“thick, dense, fat”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian Bunke (“bone”), West Frisian bonke (“bone, lump, bump”), Dutch bonk (“lump, bone”), Low German Bunk (“bone”), German Bunge (“tuber”), Danish bunke (“heap, pile”), Faroese bunki (“heap, pile”); Hittite [Term?] (/⁠panku⁠/, “total, entire”), Tocharian B pkante (“volume, fatness”), Lithua…