Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. tobacco.

1691

169116921693169416951696169716981699

1700

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

17001710172017301740175017601770

1760

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

1700180019002000

2022

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

194019501960197019801990

1999

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

19601970198019902000

2003

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

1978

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

7. (US campus) any sexually transmitted disease.

2001

2001

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

8. (US drugs) marijuana.

2001

2001200220032004

2005

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.