dunk
/dʌŋk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.54 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The act or instance of dunking, particularly in basketball.
name
A locality in Cassowary Coast Region, Queensland, Australia, which includes the Family Islands; one is Dunk Island, named after George Montagu-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "I like to dunk my donut in my apple cider."
- "Parents shouldn't just dunk their kids in front of the TV."
- "The center spun quickly and dunked the ball with authority."
- "The point guard threaded a pass with pinpoint precision to the power forward for an easy dunk."
- "She gave the biscuit a dunk in her cup of milk."
- "To rattle the rats to the point where their stress response remained demonstrably hyperactive, the researchers exposed the animals to four weeks of varying stressors: moderate electric shocks, being encaged with dominant rats, prolonged dunks in water."
Etymology
From Pennsylvania German dunke, from Middle High German dunken, from Old High German dunkōn (“to dip, submerge, dunk”), from Proto-West Germanic *þunkōn (“to make wet”), possibly from Proto-Germanic *þunkōną, from Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to moisten, wet”). Cognate with German tunken (“to dunk”), Latin tingō (“to wet, moisten”), Ancient Greek τέγγω (téngō, “to wet, moisten”). Related to taint, tincture, tint.