thunk

UK/θʌŋk/US/θʌŋk/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechmostly spoken

Other forms: thunks

A thunk is a dull heavy sound of something landing. A dull thunk, landed with a thunk, the thunk of the door.

It is one of a family of sound words where the vowel does the work, so a thunk is heavier than a thud and duller than a thwack. In computing it also names a small piece of code that stands in for a value.

Definitions of thunk

1nounthunkA dull heavy sound of something landing.C2
“The heavy book slid off the shelf and hit the floor with a thunk.”

thunk is a sound.

Where it comes from

Formed by analogy with words such as drunk and sunk, imitating the sound.

By analogy with past participles ending in "-unk", such as drunk and sunk.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

← Vocabulary

thunk

UK/θʌŋk/US/θʌŋk/

nounC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechmostly spoken

Other forms: thunks

A thunk is a dull heavy sound of something landing. A dull thunk, landed with a thunk, the thunk of the door.

Definitions of thunk

1nounthunkA dull heavy sound of something landing.C2
“The heavy book slid off the shelf and hit the floor with a thunk.”

thunk is a sound.

Where it comes from

Formed by analogy with words such as drunk and sunk, imitating the sound.

By analogy with past participles ending in "-unk", such as drunk and sunk.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA