spunk
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /spʌŋk/
rhymes: -ʌŋk
Forms: form: spunks
Etymology: 1530, blend of spark + funk (obsolete, “spark”).
Funk (“spark, touchwood”) is from Middle English funke, fonke (“spark”), from Old English *funca (“spark”), from Proto-West Germanic *funkō, from Proto-Germanic *funkô (“spark”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)peng- (“to shine”), and is akin to Middle Low German funke, fanke (“spark”), Middle Dutch vonke (“spark”), Old High German funcho, funko (“spark”), German Funke (“spark”).
Senses: examples: text: "[...] That's none such an entirely bad little man, yon little man with the red head," said Alan. "He has some spunks of decency."
ref: 1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, “I Talk with Alan in the Wood of Lettermore”, in Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC, pages 176–177:
text: He […] took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk towards Stephen in the shell of his hands.
ref: 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 1]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
glosses: A spark.
examples: text: Spunk, or Touch-wood prepared, might perhaps make it Russet: and some, as Beringuccio affirmeth, have promised to make it Red.
ref: 1650, Thomas Browne, chapter II, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC, 1st book, page 5:
text: A piece of Touch-wood (which is a kind of Jews-ear, or Mushrom, growing here in England also, on several sorts of Trees, such as Elders, Maples, Willows, &c. and is commonly call'd by the name of Spunk[…]).
ref: 1665, R[obert] Hooke, chapter XXII, in Micrographia: Or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. […], London: […] Jo[hn] Martyn, and Ja[mes] Allestry, printers to the Royal Society, […], →OCLC:
glosses: Touchwood; tinder.
examples: text: At present, her only means of procuring subsistence for herself and children, is by making spunks or matches, which, either she or her eldest child, a girl about six years of age, sells from door to door.
ref: 1829, Society for Relief of the Destitute Sick (Edinburgh), Report, p. 7
text: “Spunks — spunks — spunks — who will buy my spunks?” — cried an errant voice with a beseeching earnestness[…].
ref: 1843, John Wilson, John Gibson Lockhart, William Maginn, James Hogg, The Noctes Ambrosianæ of “Blackwood”, volume IV, page 396:
glosses: A piece of tinder, sometimes impregnated with sulphur; a match.
examples: text: 1847, Anne Brontë, Agnes Grey, ch 17.
She showed me the letters of another individual, too, the unfortunate Mr. Green, who had not the courage, or, as she expressed it, the “spunk,” to plead his cause in person, but whom one denial would not satisfy: he must write again and again.
text: “I reckon I′m as good as a mule,” he declared. “Maria knows what that desert is as well as we do, but she′s got more spunk than either of us. I'm not going to let any mule show more spunk than me.”
ref: 1920 August, Edward Leonard, "Old Zeke′s Mule", Boys′ Life, p. 55
text: Douglas: You've got spunk. And balls. And I like that in a woman.
ref: 2007 September 28, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 2, Episode 6
glosses: Courage; spirit; mettle; determination.
examples: text: I got a transfer in my bank job and on the first day on the job in the big smoke I had to share a teller's box with a young lady called Kim, a real spunk and my future wife.
ref: 1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 82:
text: We are welcomed by 20 year old spunks, as we make a last valiant attempt with our bodies - gasp, gasp - and try to get back in shape.
ref: 2005, Sue Austin, Women′s Aggressive Fantasies: A Post-Jungian Exploration of Self-Hatred, Love and Agency, UK: Routledge, page 166:
synonyms: Adonis
beefcake
hunk
glosses: An attractive person; a good-looker.
examples: text: Curse the blasted, jelly-boned swines[...] the sniveling, dribbling, dithering palsied pulse-less lot that make up England today. They've got white of egg in their veins, and their spunk is that watery it's a marvel they can breed.
ref: 1912, D.H. Lawrence, letter to Edward Garnett, 3 July 1912:
text: Between spunk-stained sheet and odorous whim
 Camera eye-flick-shudder within
ref: 1980, “In the Flat Field”, in In the Flat Field, performed by Bauhaus:
text: It was runny stuff and, as she felt Brain loosen his hold on the drawstrings, Cackle's spunk dripped onto the shelf of her chin.
ref: 2007, Debra Hyde, “Kidnapped”, in Violet Blue, editor, Lust: Erotic Fantasies for Women, ReadHowYouWant, published 2010, page 188:
glosses: Semen.
Derived terms: spunkful
spunkless
spunklike
spunk-water
spunky