Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) to run off, to escape, to go into hiding.

c.1870		‘Peck’s Bad Boy’ [broadside ballad] The keeper tried to catch him, but the bad boy did a bunk [F&H].
1876		London & Provincial Entr’acte 9 Dec. 3/2: The slang phrase of ‘doing a bunk’ has no reference to Mr Mosedale.
1891		Edinburgh Eve. News 5 Nov. 2/5: It’s a nasty kind o’night to do a bunk, and we ha’int got the dibs for a doss.
1898		W. Pett Ridge Mord Em’ly 72: Did she do a bunk from the shop her mother got for her?
1902		A.N. Lyons Hookey 6: An’ mother done a bunk with a strong man called Hercules.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 6 Nov. 4/7: One particular ‘Tommy’ [...] was a gentleman of the welsher species, and [...] did a bunk on Cup night with the fruits of the population’s punting.
1908		Pelham & Rule [perf. Kate Carney] Don’t forget to call me in the morning 🎵 I’m going to do a bunk, and take my old tin trunk.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 12 June 2nd sect. 12/7: Do a bunki-doodle back / Ere your pater mild / Tumbles to the awful fack / You’re an erring child.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Sept. 10/4: [T]he gentleman who had done the burglary had left a note to the effect that, when he broke in, he could find no trace of the original inhabitant, and that, in his humble opinion, ‘the bloke had done a bunk and never been buried at all.’.
1912		H. Champion ‘C.A.R.R.O.T.Y.’ [monologue] My father did a bunk some time ago.
1916		R. Service ‘Funk’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 59: You’re sqeamish in the belly, / And you wants to turn about and do a bunk.
1919		E. Dyson ‘How Herman Won the Cross’ in ‘Hello, Soldier!’ 81: Then arm in arm through No Man’s land we does a social bunk.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 241: I could easily do a bunk on ma.
1927		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 20 Aug. 11/1: Slanguage [...] Parse and analyse the following: [...] ‘Yer shoulda seen ’im do a bunk’.
1929		(con. 1916) F. Manning Her Privates We (1986) 122: What will you do if he tries to do a bunk again?
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 193: She went to his house; that dirty skunk / Had packed his bags and done a bunk.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 133: Robbed — Cho [...] Quick — let’s do — a bunk!
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 147: He just done a bunk, and went home.
1941		A. Gurney Bluey & Curley 21 Mar. [synd. cartoon strip] We found the imaginary enemy had done a bunk!!
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 320: Bluey and I decided to do a bunk before they got us any further West.
1959		A. Sillitoe ‘Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner’ in Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (1960) 31: Mike thought we should take it out and both of us do a bunk to Skegness.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene x: I knew the little bleeder ’ld do a bunk!
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 120: The moment she turned her back I did a bunk.
1985		B. Humphries Traveller’s Tool 102: It was only when the bedroom door opened and the grandmother came in slipping out of her surgical stockings, that I did a fast bunk.
1994		C. Dexter Daughters of Cain (1995) 374: You think she’s done a bunk?
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 33: Places he’d lived in, done a bunk outta, boozers he’d had the tear-up in. [Ibid.] 56: When did she do the bunk outta the treatment gaff.
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 43: The same bookie and his staff did ‘do a bolt (or a bunk)’ [...] because they couldn’t pay .
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 34/1: do the bunk to escape from prison.

2. (Aus.) to move or work fast.

1912

Bulletin (Sydney) 31 Oct. 13/2: Also, each mail brings urgent letters asking when in Hades they propose to sail, and, in between times, cablegrams rage for them to ‘do a bunk,’ or all contracts will be cancelled.