Bunch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -ÊŒntʃ

Origin

From Middle English bunche ("hump, swelling"), variant of *bunge (compare dialectal English bung ("heap, grape bunch")), from Proto-Germanic *bunkōn, *bunkan, *bungōn ("heap, crowd") (compare West Frisian bonke ("bone, lump, bump"), German Bunge ("tuber"), Danish bunke ("heap, pile")), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ-, *bʰéng̑ʰus ("thick, dense, fat") (compare Hittite panku ("total, entire"), Tocharian B pkante ("volume, fatness"), Lithuanian búožė ("knob"), Ancient Greek παχύς (pachýs, "thick"), Sanskrit बहु (bahú, "thick; much")).

Noun

1. A group of a number of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.
• 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula Chapter 21, 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.
• 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, Mr. Pratt's Patients Chapter 1, 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.
2. a bunch of grapes;  a bunch of bananas;  a bunch of keys;  a bunch of yobs on a street corner
3. (cycling) The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race.
4. An informal body of friends.
• 1907, w, The Younger Set Chapter 6, “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, ...!”
5. He still hangs out with the same bunch.
6. (informal) A considerable amount.
   a bunch of trouble
7. (informal) An unmentioned amount; a number.
   A bunch of them went down to the field.
8. (forestry) A group of logs tied together for skidding.
9. (geology, mining) An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.
10. (textiles) The reserve yarn on the filling bobbin to allow continuous weaving between the time of indication from the midget feeler until a new bobbin is put in the shuttle.
11. An unfinished cigar, before the wrapper leaf is added.
    Two to four filler leaves are laid end to end and rolled into the two halves of the binder leaves, making up what is called the bunch.
12. A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump; a hump.
• Bible, Isaiah xxx. 6They will carry ... their treasures upon the bunches of camels.

Synonyms

• (group of similar things) cluster, group
• (informal body of friends) pack, group, gang, circle
• (unusual concentration of ore) ore pocket, pocket, pocket of ore, kidney, nest, nest of ore, ore bunch, bunch of ore

Derived terms

• buncha (bunch of)

Full definition of bunch

Verb

1. (transitive) To gather into a bunch.
2. (transitive) To gather fabric into folds.
3. (intransitive) To form a bunch.
4. (intransitive) To be gathered together in folds
5. (intransitive) To protrude or swell
• WoodwardBunching out into a large round knob at one end.

Synonyms

• (form a bunch) cluster, group