Other forms: bunches, bunched, bunching
A bunch is a group of things held or growing together — a bunch of flowers, a bunch of grapes, a bunch of keys. What makes it a bunch rather than a group is that the things are gathered at one point.
It is used informally of people too: a nice bunch, a bunch of idiots. And in American English a bunch of has widened to mean simply a lot of, with any noun at all — a bunch of work, a bunch of times — which sounds odd in British English. Note the collocations, which are fixed: a bunch of flowers, a bouquet if it is arranged, and a bundle if it is tied. Bunches, plural, is also a hairstyle.
1nounbunchA group of things gathered or growing together.
“She arrived with a bunch of flowers.”
2noungroupA group of people.
“They are a friendly bunch.”
3verbgatherTo gather together into a tight group.
“The runners bunched up at the first corner.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
bunch is a gathered group.
A bunch was a swelling before it was a gathering. Middle English bonche meant a hump, from a root meaning thick or dense, which is why grapes bunch by bulging.
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰenǵʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*bunkō
Middle English
bunche
English, today
bunch
Built from
From Middle English bunche, bonche (“hump, swelling”), of unknown 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 stq 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”); hit 𒉺𒀭𒆪𒍑 (“total, entire”), txb pkante (“volume, fatness”), Lithuanian búožė (“knob”), Ancient Greek παχύς (“thick”), Sanskrit बहु (“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 vls bondje, diminutive of vls bond (“bundle”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA