Speakur

Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

crunk

/kɹʌŋk/

Word Rarity Very rare

Frequency: 2.23 in modern English

Syllables
crunk
IPA
/kɹʌŋk/
11
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars

Meaning

adj

Crazy and intoxicated.

American usage; Slang

noun

A type of hip hop that originated in the southern United States.

Uncountable

verb

To cry like a crane.

Intransitive verb; Obsolete

verb

simple past and past participle of crank

name

A surname.

Example Sentences

Etymology

Attested in the Southern US since the late 1980s, originally in the sense of “rowdy, high energy out-of-control behavior by a crowd at Southern night clubs”. Popularized by its use in the fusion genre of crunk music in the 1990s and especially early 2000s. In this context, first used in music lyrics and notably popularized by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, on their 1997 debut album Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album. Various possible origins have been proposed: * Blend of crazy + drunk “crazy drunk”. * Blend of chronic (“marijuana”) + drunk “high on marijuana and drunk (on alcohol) at the same time”. * From a dialectal past tense of crank. See Crunk: etymology at Wikipedia for further information. There is no evidence of any connection with Yiddish or German krank (“sick, ill”), nor that it entered the Southern Black vernacular through the presence of European Jewish immigrant shopkeepers in black neighborhoods in cities such as Atlanta. The phonetic similarity of the words is considered a coincidence.

Usage

Subject

Wiktionary places this term in Music.

Inflected Forms

crunker (comparative) crunkest (superlative) krunk (alternative) crunks (present, singular) crunking (participle, present) crunked (participle, past) crunked (past) Crunks (plural)

Derived Forms

aquacrunk crunk&B crunkcore crunkmeister

Rhymes With

drunk punk trunk junk monk sunk funk chunk dunk bunk shrunk hunk

Questions

How do you pronounce crunk?
The recorded pronunciation is /kɹʌŋk/.
What does crunk mean?
Crazy and intoxicated.
Where does crunk come from?
Attested in the Southern US since the late 1980s, originally in the sense of “rowdy, high energy out-of-control behavior by a crowd at Southern night clubs”. Popularized by its use in the fusion genre of crunk music in the 1990s and especially early 2000s. In this context, first used in music lyrics and notably popularized by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, on their 1997 debut album Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album. Various possible origins have been proposed: * Blend of crazy + drunk “crazy drunk”. * Blend of chronic (“marijuana”) + drunk “high on marijuana and drunk (on alcohol) at the same time”. * From a dialectal past tense of crank. See Crunk: etymology at Wikipedia for further information. There is no evidence of any connection with Yiddish or German krank (“sick, ill”), nor that it entered the Southern Black vernacular through the presence of European Jewish immigrant shopkeepers in black neighborhoods in cities such as Atlanta. The phonetic similarity of the words is considered a coincidence.

How to pronounce crunk

  1. Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “crunk”.
  2. Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/kɹʌŋk/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
  3. Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “crunk”.
  4. Repeat and practice — Say “crunk” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.