bunch
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: arts
business
crafts
cycling
forestry
geography
geology
glassblowing
hobbies
lifestyle
manufacturing
mining
natural-sciences
smoking
sports
textiles
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”), Lithuanian búožė (“knob”), Ancient Greek παχύς (pakhús, “thick”), Sanskrit बहु (bahú, “thick; much”)).
Alternatively, perhaps from a variant or diminutive of bump (compare hump/hunch, lump/lunch, etc.); or from dialectal Old French bonge (“bundle”) (compare French bongeau, bonjeau, bonjot), from West Flemish bondje, diminutive of West Flemish bond (“bundle”).
Inflected forms:
form: bunches
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: bunches
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: bunching
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: bunched
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: bunched
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.
pos: noun
examples: a bunch of grapes
a bunch of bananas
a bunch of keys
a bunch of yobs on a street corner
When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places.
I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
Why do we sometimes find three buses on the same route arriving together at a bus stop? What is the explanation of bunching? […] Meanwhile there are other buses following on the same route. The 600-yard interval between the second and third bus is decreased by every second's delay to the leaders, and before long the third bus has caught up. That is why buses sometimes arrive at the bus stop in bunches.
gloss: The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race.
pos: noun
gloss: An informal body of friends.
pos: noun
examples: He still hangs out with the same bunch.
“I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers,[…], the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"
gloss: A considerable amount.
pos: noun
tags: US
informal
examples: a bunch of trouble
gloss: An unmentioned amount; a number.
pos: noun
tags: informal
examples: A bunch of them went down to the field.
gloss: A group of logs tied together for skidding.
pos: noun
gloss: An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.
pos: noun
examples: 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
gloss: The reserve yarn on the filling bobbin to allow continuous weaving between the time of indication from the midget feeler until a new bobbin is put in the shuttle.
pos: noun
gloss: An unfinished cigar, before the wrapper leaf is added.
pos: noun
examples: Two to four filler leaves are laid end to end and rolled into the two halves of the binder leaves, making up what is called the bunch.
gloss: A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump; a hump.
pos: noun
examples: They will carry[…]their treasures upon the bunches of camels.
gloss: A seventeenth-century unit of Rhenish glass, 60 of which constitute a way or web.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
gloss: To gather into a bunch.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To gather fabric into folds.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
gloss: To form a bunch.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: "Permissive" working allows more than one train to be in a block section at one time but trains must be run at low speed in order to stop on sight behind the train in front. Such working is often authorised to allow freight trains to "bunch" together to await a path through a bottleneck instead of being strung out over several block sections, as would be necessary if absolute working were in force.
gloss: To be gathered together in folds
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To protrude or swell
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: A very large ſparry Nodule externally of a brown Colour. It has ſomewhat of the reſemblance of a large Champignon before 'tis open'd, bunching out into a large round Knob at one end, the part proceeding from it being leſs, round, and not unlike a Stalk.
Derived words: best of the bunch
bluebunch
buncha
bunchberry
bunchflower
bunchgrass
bunch grass
bunchlet
bunch of fives
bunch pink
bunchy
get one's panties in a bunch
honeybunch
kissing-bunch
microbunch
nanobunch
one bad apple can spoil the whole bunch
thanks a bunch
Willow Bunch
buncher
bunch in
bunch together
bunch up
unbunch
Translations: