bunch
/bʌnt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: 4.57 in modern English
12
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.
noun
The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race.
noun
An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.
Example Sentences
- "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."
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 𒉺𒀭𒆪𒍑 (/pankuš/, “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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /bʌnt͡ʃ/
- British English: /bʌntʃ/