Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. tobacco.

1691		N. Ward ‘The Poet’s Ramble after Riches’ in Writings (1704) 9: And then in order to be Drunk, / Each gave his Word for Drink and Funk.
1700		‘Mac Ballor’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy II 281: So I may no more pogue the Hone of a Woman, / Deel tauk me ’t has har’d me quite out of my Wits, / For when I get drunk, toap a Funk, in comes Punk.

2. tobacco smoke.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Funk, Tobacco Smoak; also a strong Smell or Stink.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].

3. a stench.

1681		implied at funky adj.1 (1)
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Funk [...] a strong Smell or Stink.
1707		N. Ward Wooden World 86: But hold, ads Death, the Rogue, with his green Billets, has rais’d such a Funk in the Forecastle, that the Devil himself cannot stay.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1821–5		‘Bill Truck’ Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 21: Don’t murder the blessed sea-breeze with the funk of your abominable carcase.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 121: Jim, the funk in that dommy was so thick you could cut it with a butterknife.
1962		S. Longstreet Flesh Peddlers (1964) 118: A funk of smoke and body musk and spilled drinks hung in the rooms.
1977		(con. 1969) M. Herr Dispatches 45: You could [...] smell incense in the middle of the thickest Asian street funk.
1989		(con. 1982–6) T. Williams Cocaine Kids (1990) 107: The smell is a nauseating mix of semen, crack, sweat, other human body odors, funk and filth.
1997–2001		Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 funk n 1. a bad odor. (‘Oh man, I smell a funk!’).
2006		J. Ridley What Fire Cannot Burn 367: The stench was a sock in the face [...] a funk so rank it actually hurt.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] The smell [...] mingled with Bad Boy’s personal odour, a kind of bum/old man funk with hints of jail tobacco.
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 5: [The] rotten East River tidal funk wafting in the windows.
2019		S.M. Jones Lives Laid Away [ebook] Humid funk. A sickly stew of sweat, farts, mold, dicey food, flat beer and premature ejaculation.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 17: They didn’t let her shower [...] She could smell her funk through her prison grays.

4. (orig. US black) sweat generated during sex, dancing, general body odour.

1935		L. Bogan ‘Till the Cows Come Home’ [song title] I got hairs on my cock that will sweep the floor / I gotta funk on the hairs that will shut the door.
1938		N.E. Eliason ‘Some Negro Terms’ in AS XIII:2 152/1: Funk: body odor.
a.1954		‘Ball of the Freaks’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 112: They had fried shit choplets and hot funk custard.
1963		M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 122: She bears your funk with a woman’s compassion.
1974		R. Carter Sixteenth Round (1991) 162: You scrub your tail in your own nasty funk.
1987		Eble Campus Sl. Spring 3: funk – smell of bodies after sex or strenuous physical activity.
1992		T. Williams Crackhouse 82: The human odors of piss and funk mixed with rotting garbage.
1999		J. Ridley Everybody Smokes in Hell 12: He produced an odor that was a museum-quality collection of puke, piss, funk, and general body reek.

5. (orig. US black) anything basic, elemental, earthy; the essence of being; thus funkster n., one who has such qualities.

1959		Jazz: A Quarterly of Amer. Music Fall 292: You can ever try to put too much ‘funk’ in a thing.
1960		J. Blake letter 14 Dec. in Joint (1972) 169: He once told me he’d like to chain me to tha piano for an hour every day to play nothing but blues until I comprehended funkiness.
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 57: He writes about the real funk of life.
1999		Guardian Guide 29 May–4 June 27: Regular Fries have got the funk.
1999		Guardian Rev. 5 Nov. 16: He needed help in accessing his inner funkster.
2003		G. Tate Midnight Lightning 72: Where did he get his funk from?

6. (US) anything attractive or beautiful.

1978

L. Kramer Faggots 296: Pure funk and athletic finery to rival locker rooms.

7. (US campus) any sexually transmitted disease.

2001

Eble Campus Sl. Fall 4: FUNK – any sexually transmitted disease.

8. (US drugs) marijuana.

2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 75/2: funk n. an alternative term for skunk (weed): ‘The funk’s in town.
2005		G. Pelecanos Drama City 151: Smoke up the rest of this funk before we do.