Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also funck, the funks) (a state of) cowardice, terror.

1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 204: For when I get drunk, toap a Funk, in comes Punk.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 260: She heard how fast the Trojans flew, / And was [...] In a confounded funk for you.
1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: I was in a cursed funk.
1791		J. Gillray Hopes of the Party, prior to July 14th 19 July [cartoon] Zounds! what the devil is it that puts me into such a hell of a Funk?
1801		Sporting Mag. May XVIII 89/2: His death was Extreme Funk-tion.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress 21: Up he rose in a funk, lapp’d a toothful of brandy, / And to it again.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 311: I was in a complete funk.
1825		Bell’s Life in London 10 Apr. 2/3: Bill vas in such a funck.
1837		R. Nicholson Cockney Adventures 9 Dec. 45: What a funk that ere military cove is in, to be sure.
1847		‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 25 July 3/3: Master Van was ina funk, I can tell you.
1848		G.F. Ruxton Life in the Far West (1849) 12: The mules, which was a-snorting with funk and running before the Injuns followed her right into the corral.
1852		G.C. Mundy Our Antipodes II 77: His first view of the natives of this unknown land [...] breathes such pure ‘funk’ of the inhabitants.
1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 280: She looks nervous and [...] perhaps she’ll tip something through funk.
1861		Hills & Plains 2 154: A certain depression passion known in plain English as fear and in low and rather slangy English as ‘funk’.
1861		T. Hughes Tom Brown at Oxford (1880) 29: What a funk the fellow was in.
1871		C. Money Knocking About in N.Z. 111: Mr. Browning [...] had avoided mention of its dangers, for fear of alarming us too soon, and what schoolboys call ‘establishing a funk’.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 10 Apr. 4/3: He described to me, graphically, Bruun’s ‘funk’ when he took him into the bank and subjected him to the process of giving over the plunder and writing the statement.
1883		H. Smart Hard Lines II 266: We were rather in a funk we should be left behind.
1895		J. Greenwood Behind A Bus 97: I was in a terrible funk then.
1895		Sun. Times (Sydney) 3 Feb. 1/1: They Say [...] That funk is always responsible for some wickets in a big match.
1898		Regiment 14 May 109/3: ‘lt's the outlying picket; they have seen us, think we're the enemy, got the funks, and are hooking it; let's chivey them’.
1906		Sun. Times (Perth) 17 June 1/1: A Subiaco saint is in a dreadful state of funk.
1909		Wodehouse Mike [ebook] ‘Not in a funk, are you?’ asked Wyatt [...] Mike grinned [...] he had far too good an opinion of himself to be nervous.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 23 Jan. 2nd sect. 3/3: Among other sentences hurled at Mike was ‘Keep at him. Pat: he’ll quit,’ a suggestion of funk which naturally made Mike fearfully wild.
1912		P.C. Wren Dew & Mildew 408: ‘Our brave Capting has got the funks’.
1916		R. Service ‘Funk’ in Rhymes of a Red Cross Man 59: Don’t let your mateys know it— / You’re just sufferin’ from funk, funk, funk.
1923		‘Sapper’ Jim Maitland (1953) 187: You were in a pea-green funk.
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 152: It was funk, bred of hunger, that kept him virtuous.
1945		A. Christie Sparkling Cyanide (1955) 156: Dare say he’s in a funk in case she should get to hear of it.
1952		P. Larkin letter 18 July in Thwaite Sel. Letters (1992) 185: I reproached myself silently for being in such a gibbering funk as to have come near to spoiling such a happy weekend.
1963		C. Cooper Jr ‘Yet Princes Follow’ in Black! (1996) 268: Teese was in a profound, funk-filled quandary.
1972		K. Bonfiglioli Don’t Point That Thing at Me (1991) 40: His little eyes dripping tears of hatred and funk.
1981		W. Boyd ‘Histoire Vache’ in On the Yankee Station (1982) 103: At once a blind funk seized him and he felt convinced he wouldn’t be able to go through with it.
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 88: Weeks passed with little improvement in the new whale’s temperament. One Sunday, the animal abruptly awakened from its funk.
2002		L. Pizzichini Dead Men’s Wages (2003) 254: He was isolated in a funk of doubt and apprehension.
2015		Valley Morn. Star (Harlingen, TX) 13 June 16/4: ‘I kind of lost it a little bit [...] But afterwards I broke out of my funk, and I was able to get back on it’.
2018		G. Disher Kill Shot [ebook] Clearly the kid was in a funk [...] Kramer seemed to flinch.

2. a black mood; a state of depression; thus funking adj., furious.

1797		Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 262: Venus, as haps to many a punk, / Has been in such a woeful funk.
1833		‘The Juniper Bough’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 13: Away they sneaked, and their friends began / All over the crib in a funk to run.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 50: Fuzzy getting rather shirty, but nanty palary and funkums.
1877		‘The Humours of a Country Fair’ in Laughing Songster 174: The last new pantomime [...] called Harlequin in a Funk, or, the Magic Sheep’s Head!
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 19 Sept. 14/2: Then disgusted, at length, cried Joanna: / ‘I will slither straight back to Aunt Hannah;’ / So she flies, in a funk, / With a half-corded trunk, / Leaving ‘fairwel’ scratched on the pi-anner.
1890		Sporting Times 18 Jan. 1: We don’t feel at all certain that it wouldn’t have been better to create a salutary funk by kicking the Portuguese neck and crop out of their Colonial possessions.
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 24 Aug. 751: Although I was in such an awful funk, I nearly burst out roaring with laughter at some of the things I saw.
1913		Truth (Sydney) 1 Mar. 5/4: Are yous in a funk? / Inside here, the reggerlations / Dont like subjects as do sulk .
1924		R. McAlmon Three Generations of the Same (1963) 98: The boy was in a black funk.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 157: The last few months Danny had been in a funk.
1938		N. Lindsay Age Of Consent 205: In a funking rage, Bradley snapped his traps together and picked up the canvas.
1949		I. Bolton Christmas Tree in N.Y. Mosaic (1999) 270: The poor man retreating in a kind of funk.
1959		S. Bellow Henderson The Rain King 111: Man, don’t be in such a funk.
1962		H.S. Thompson letter 4 Aug. in Proud Highway (1997) 348: I am trying to resist the temptation to go into a funk and quit.
1977		C. McFadden Serial 44: He was already working himself up into a funk.
1986		E. Weiner Howard the Duck 61: Even a duck can only stomp around in a funk for so long.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 131: Joe started at the sagging bunk springs [...] mired in a lovelost funk.
2004		T. Winton ‘Boner McPharlin’s Moll’ in Turning (2005) 278: When I got back [...] my parents were in a total funk.
2008		T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 95: I have to get my mind off this, or a major funk is brewing.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 49: Foy, flat broke and embarrassed, called to ask my dad to nigger-whisper him out of his suicidal funk.

3. a coward.

1866		Wild Boys of London I 45/1: If the Mongrel there had half your nerve he could make a fortune, for he’s the most infernal funk alive.
1882		‘F. Anstey’ Vice Versa (1931) 78: They were neither of them funks, of course, but they lost their heads.
1898		Kipling ‘Stalky’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 13: Oh, you’re a beastly funk!
1901		Boy’s Own Paper 6 Apr. 424: I felt an awful ‘funk’ when I heard the bullets whizzing round me.
1913		A. Lunn Harrovians 54: In school stories a footer funk is the object of univeral scorn.
1926		Boys’ Realm 16 Jan. 270: I know you now for what you are! You dirty funk!
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1939		P. Hamilton To The Public Danger 68: You’re not going to be a little funk, are you, Nancy?
1949		P. Pringle Boy’s Book of Cricket 26: That would look like running away – as if he was a funk.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 168: I’m such a funk I’m always scared it’s an enemy telephoning me.
1961		‘Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter at Butlins 41: Why, you fat, foozling funk [...] You were scared stiff behind that tree.
1980		‘John le Carré’ Smiley’s People 161: ‘The leech tries to fool me, of course. That’s because he’s a funk.’.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 167: Other variations, chiefly British, include a funk, which is a coward.

4. (UK campus) a student's failure to try to pass an examination needed to graduate.

1897

T.J. Henry Claude Garton 59: His friend [...] attributed his reverses in examinations, or the many ‘funks’ which separated each attempt to pass, to his being ‘so deucedly popular’.

5. (Aus./US Und.) an informer.

1908

Bulletin (Sydney) 2 July 39/1: ‘But I’ve seen him up against some pretty rough bits in my time, an’ I don’t reckon he’s a funk. He may be everythin’ else, sir; but I can’t think he’ll give the other chaps away.’.

6. (US tramp) a sneak thief.

1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 447: Funk, A sneak thief.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 43/2: Funk [...] an unprincipled thief.

7. see Peter Funk n. (1)