bunker
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbʌŋk.əː/
ipa: /ˈbʌŋk.ɚ/
rhymes: -ʌŋkə(ɹ)
Forms: form: bunkers
Etymology: The origin of the noun is uncertain; 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”), from Early Scots bunker, bunkur, bonker (“a chest or box, often serving as a seat”), probably from Old Norse bunki (“a heap”) (probably whence bunk (“sleeping berth in a ship, train, etc.”)), 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 (?)”). Compare Middle Low German bunge (“drum, container”), Middle High German bunge (“drum”). 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.
Senses: examples: text: The military built a bunker to help evacuate the citizens safely from the bombings.
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: A hardened shelter, often partly buried or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks.
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A compartment for storing coal for the ship's boilers; or a tank for storing fuel oil for the ship's engines.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in The Railway Magazine, Westminster, London: IPC Transport Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 161:
text: The bunkers of these engines hold enough coal for one round journey of 120½ miles, and water is taken in each direction at Hexham.
ref: 1941 December, “Notes and News: A Tank Engine's 241-mile Day”, in Railway Magazine, page 569:
text: The superstructure of the tender is modified by the removal of the side raves, and compartments for the fire-irons are formed on each side of the coal bunker.
ref: 1956 April, “"Merchant Navy" Class Pacific Modified”, in Railway Magazine, page 212:
topics: rail-transport
railways
transport
glosses: The coal compartment on a tank engine; it can also refer to that on a tender engine.
examples: text: The vessel is taking on bunkers.
glosses: Ellipsis of bunker oil (usually plural).
examples: text: [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?
ref: 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, pages 204 and 223:
topics: golf
hobbies
lifestyle
sports
glosses: A hazard on a golf course consisting of a sand-filled hollow.
topics: games
hobbies
lifestyle
paintball
sports
glosses: An obstacle used to block an opposing player's view and field of fire.
examples: text: There used to be a coal bunker at the back of the house - it was demolished years ago.
glosses: A large bin or container for storing coal, often built outdoors in the yard of a house.
examples: text: A winnock-bunker in the eaſt, / There ſat auld Nick, in ſhape o' beaſt; […]
ref: 1790 (date written; published 1791), Robert Burns, “Tam o’ Shanter. A Tale.”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, 2nd edition, volume II, Edinburgh: […] T[homas] Cadell, […], and William Creech, […], published 1793, →OCLC, page 202:
text: 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.
ref: 1818 July 25, Jedediah 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, page 234:
glosses: A sort of box or chest, as in a window, the lid of which serves as a seat.
glosses: A kitchen worktop.
Derived terms: bunkerage
bunker barge
bunker buster
bunker-busting
bunkeresque
bunker fuel
bunkering
bunkerish
bunkerless
bunkerlike
bunkerman
bunkermate
bunker mentality
bunker oil
Diefenbunker