bunker

name

1. A surname.

noun

Etymology: Clipping of mossbunker, a variant of mossbanker, from Dutch marsbanker (“common scad or Atlantic horse mackerel (Trachurus trachurus)”), from Marsdiep (“deep tide-race between Den Helder and Texel in the Netherlands”) + bank (“shallow part of the sea near a coast”) + -er (suffix forming nouns denoting male inhabitants of a place).

1. The menhaden, any of several species of fish in the genera Brevoortia and Ethmidium.

   “Ten hours of footage revealed the young [shark's] habits, such as diving for squid up to 150 feet deep, then moving closer to shore to feast on huge schools of bunker fish.”

verb

Etymology: The origin of the noun is uncertain; the earliest sense is sense 7.1 (“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.

1. To load (a vessel) with coal or fuel oil for the engine.
2. To take a load of coal or fuel oil for its engine.
3. To steal bunker fuel by illicitly siphoning it off.
4. To hit (a golf ball) into a bunker; (chiefly passive voice) to place (a golfer) in the position of having a golf ball in a bunker.
5. To hit (a golf ball) into a bunker; (chiefly passive voice) to place (a golfer) in the position of having a golf ball in a bunker.

   “Proteus. Or we resign and tell the country that we cant carry on the King's Government under conditions which destroy our responsibility. / Balbus. Thatll do it. He couldnt face that. / Crassus. Yes: thatll bunker him.”

6. To fire constantly at (an opponent hiding behind an obstacle), trapping them and preventing them from firing at other players; also, to eliminate (an opponent behind an obstacle) by rushing to the position and firing at extremely close range as the player becomes exposed.
7. Often followed by down: to take shelter in a bunker or other place.

   “As troops swarmed the streets below and gun battles continued to rage, I bunkered in a room on the top floor of a building in the middle of the red zone. Redshirt spokesman Sean Boonpracong sought refuge there too. Protesters burned a train station below, hurling tyres on to an already roaring blaze across the tracks.”

   “More than 10,000 people were bunkering in 20 emergency shelters across the disaster zone, not all of them cyclone-rated.”