BUNK

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does bunk mean? 

• BUNK (noun)
  The noun BUNK has 6 senses:

1. a long trough for feeding cattle

2. a bed on a ship or train; usually in tiers

3. a rough bed (as at a campsite)

4. unacceptable behavior (especially ludicrously false statements)

5. a message that seems to convey no meaning

6. beds built one above the other

  Familiarity information: BUNK used as a noun is common.

• BUNK (verb)
  The verb BUNK has 3 senses:

1. avoid paying

2. provide with a bunk

3. flee; take to one's heels; cut and run

  Familiarity information: BUNK used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BUNK (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A long trough for feeding cattle

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

bunk; feed bunk

Hypernyms ("bunk" is a kind of...):

manger; trough (a container (usually in a barn or stable) from which cattle or horses feed)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A bed on a ship or train; usually in tiers

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

berth; built in bed; bunk

Hypernyms ("bunk" is a kind of...):

bed (a piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bunk"):

upper; upper berth (the higher of two berths)

lower; lower berth (the lower of two berths)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A rough bed (as at a campsite)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("bunk" is a kind of...):

bed (a piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Unacceptable behavior (especially ludicrously false statements)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

buncombe; bunk; bunkum; guff; hogwash; rot

Hypernyms ("bunk" is a kind of...):

drivel; garbage (a worthless message)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bunk"):

bull; bullshit; crap; dogshit; horseshit; Irish bull; shit (obscene words for unacceptable behavior)

Sense 5

Meaning:

A message that seems to convey no meaning

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Synonyms:

bunk; hokum; meaninglessness; nonsense; nonsensicality

Hypernyms ("bunk" is a kind of...):

content; message; subject matter; substance (what a communication that is about something is about)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bunk"):

incoherence; incoherency; unintelligibility (nonsense that is simply incoherent and unintelligible)

baloney; bilgewater; boloney; bosh; drool; humbug; taradiddle; tarradiddle; tommyrot; tosh; twaddle (pretentious or silly talk or writing)

hooey; poppycock; stuff; stuff and nonsense (senseless talk)

schmegegge; shmegegge ((Yiddish) baloney; hot air; nonsense)

rigamarole; rigmarole (a set of confused and meaningless statements)

empty talk; empty words; hot air; palaver; rhetoric (loud and confused and empty talk)

flummery; mummery (meaningless ceremonies and flattery)

jabberwocky (nonsensical language (according to Lewis Carroll))

gibber; gibberish (unintelligible talking)

fa la; fal la (meaningless syllables in the refrain of a partsong)

crock (nonsense; foolish talk)

cobblers (nonsense)

buzzword; cant (stock phrases that have become nonsense through endless repetition)

balderdash; fiddle-faddle; piffle (trivial nonsense)

amphigory; nonsense verse (nonsensical writing (usually verse))

absurdity; absurdness; ridiculousness (a message whose content is at variance with reason)

Sense 6

Meaning:

Beds built one above the other

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

bunk; bunk bed

Hypernyms ("bunk" is a kind of...):

bed (a piece of furniture that provides a place to sleep)

Derivation:

bunk (provide with a bunk)

• BUNK (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they bunk    ... he / she / it bunks   
Past simple: bunked   
Past participle: bunked   
-ing form: bunking   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Avoid paying

Classified under:

Verbs of political and social activities and events

Synonyms:

beat; bunk

Context example:

beat the subway fare

Hypernyms (to "bunk" is one way to...):

cheat; chisel; rip off (deprive somebody of something by deceit)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Sense 2

Meaning:

Provide with a bunk

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Context example:

We bunked the children upstairs

Hypernyms (to "bunk" is one way to...):

bed (furnish with a bed)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

bunk (beds built one above the other)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Flee; take to one's heels; cut and run

Classified under:

Verbs of walking, flying, swimming

Synonyms:

break away; bunk; escape; fly the coop; head for the hills; hightail it; lam; run; run away; scarper; scat; take to the woods; turn tail

Context example:

The burglars escaped before the police showed up

Hypernyms (to "bunk" is one way to...):

go away; go forth; leave (go away from a place)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "bunk"):

flee; fly; take flight (run away quickly)

skedaddle (run away, as if in a panic)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP

 Context examples 

Three weeks afterward the man lay in a bunk on the whale-ship Bedford, and with tears streaming down his wasted cheeks told who he was and what he had undergone.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

This I discovered when she nearly fell into the bunk during a sudden lurch of the schooner.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

"He's gone off his food again," Matt remarked from his bunk.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Took larboard watch eight bells last night; was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

There was a bunk at one end, a sea-chest, maps and charts, a picture of the Sea Unicorn, a line of logbooks on a shelf, all exactly as one would expect to find it in a captain’s room.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

One evening, about the third week after our start, the doctor had come down to see one of the prisoners who was ill, and putting his hand down on the bottom of his bunk he felt the outline of the pistols.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Sometimes he fell and cut himself; sometimes he lay all day long in his little bunk at one side of the companion; sometimes for a day or two he would be almost sober and attend to his work at least passably.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Or maybe that was a dream, too, and the awakening would be the changing of the watches, when he would drop down out of his bunk in the lurching forecastle and go up on deck, under the tropic stars, and take the wheel and feel the cool tradewind blowing through his flesh.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

But they privily examined his bunk.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

“If she comes out of there,” he said, “hard and snappy, putting us to windward of the boats, it’s likely there’ll be empty bunks in steerage and fo’c’sle.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)