funk
noun
- genre of music
verb
No English definition recorded for this entry.
L331785 on Wikidata ↗Wiktionary
Pronunciation: /fʌŋk/ / /fɐŋk/ / /faŋk/
noun
Etymology: 1743, Scottish and Northern English dialectal word, originally a verb meaning “to panic, fail due to panic”. Perhaps from or cognate with obsolete Dutch fonck (“distress, agitation”), from Middle Dutch fonck (“perturbation, agitation”). More at flunk.
- Mental depression.
“I've been in a funk lately, I fell into a funk, I slipped into a funk, I was stuck in a funk”
“it helped me get out of a funk”
- A state of fear or panic, especially cowardly.
“[The helmsman] steered with no end of a swagger while you were by; but if he lost sight of you, he became instantly the prey of an abject funk […]”
“—A woful lunatic, Mulligan said. Were you in a funk?”
- One who fears or panics; a coward.
“It is the long probation in the old way of teaching that fellows funk at or makes funks of them and their slow pace, almost up to the end of that probation, all who teach themselves are in a worse predicament as the hands with them are made the principle propellors instead of the feet.”
verb
Etymology: 1743, Scottish and Northern English dialectal word, originally a verb meaning “to panic, fail due to panic”. Perhaps from or cognate with obsolete Dutch fonck (“distress, agitation”), from Middle Dutch fonck (“perturbation, agitation”). More at flunk.
- To shrink from, or avoid something because of fear.
“He'll have funked it, when he comes to the edge, and sees nothing but mist below”
“It is the long probation in the old way of teaching that fellows funk at or makes funks of them and their slow pace, almost up to the end of that probation, all who teach themselves are in a worse predicament as the hands with them are made the principle propellors instead of the feet.”
- To frighten; to cause to flinch.