bunk

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a narrow bed or sleeping berth, especially one fixed to a wall or arranged in tiers on a ship, train, or in shared quarters

   The exhausted sailor went straight to his bunk after the night watch.

2. 2
   noun

   nonsense or a statement that is not true, in informal use

   The witness dismissed the rumor as complete bunk.

3. 3
   verb

   to sleep in a bunk or share temporary sleeping quarters

   During training, the recruits bunk in a room beside the parade ground.

4. 4
   noun

   a long trough from which cattle feed

   The farmer poured grain into the bunk before releasing the cattle.

Multiword verbs with bunk

• bunk down Phrasal verb B2

  to settle into a place to sleep, often temporarily or informally

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Bunk meaning “nonsense” is a mid-19th-century shortening of bunkum or buncombe, named for Buncombe County, North Carolina. The county’s name became associated with empty talk after its congressional representative made an inconsequential speech around 1820 to please his constituents. Bunk meaning a bed and the bunk of bunk off are unrelated words of unknown origin.

The sleeping-berth sense is of uncertain origin, perhaps related to Scots bunker ("bench, chest") and Scandinavian words for boards. The informal "nonsense" sense is shortened from bunkum, itself altered from Buncombe, the North Carolina county invoked in an empty political speech in 1820.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary