funk v.2
1. (also funck, funk on) to act in a cowardly manner, to flinch or shrink through fear; to worry.
Homer Travestie (1764) II 155: Whilst Troy’s bold sons with shouts get drunk, / The conquer’d Grecians sweat and funk. | ||
Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 446: We funk’d a little, faith and troth. | ||
Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: funk to smoke, figuratively to smoke or stink through fear. | ||
‘De Kilmainham Minit’ in Luke Caffrey’s Gost 7: We saw de poor Fellow was funking, / De Drizzle stole down from his Eye. | ||
Lex. Balatronicum. | ||
Morn. Post (London) 26 Dec. 3/5: Josh. went limping to the scratch and hit away under great disadvantages, but he was too good to funck. | ||
Australian (Sydney) 4 July 3/3: It was called a good ‘floorer’. The friends of Glew seemed to breathe again, but no ‘funking’ on the other side. | ||
Memoirs (trans. W. McGinn) I 217: If I had done for all the corn-threshers (farmers) whom I have only singed, I should have nothing to funk about now. | ||
Land Sharks and Sea Gulls I 128: I’m none o’ your chicken-hearted, heave-quick sort o’ chaps as frets and funks at every hidden danger. | ||
Biglow Papers (1880) 110: To funk right out of p’lit’cal strife aint thought to be the thing. | ||
Paved with Gold 294: Perhaps we’re only funking ourselves useless, and it mayn’t be the farms chaps at all. | ||
Little Ragamuffin 45: It ’ud make you funk so, that you’d be afeared to shut your eyes when you went to bed. | ||
Home News for India (supp.) 3 June 35/2: Sorry I could not join you. I was late at office, and then had to see the doctor. I begin to ‘funk’ about Thursday . | ||
Appleton’s Journal (N.Y.) Nov. 407: He always turns up again, and always pretending to smile, and always funking something. | ‘The Seamy Side’ in||
My Secret Life (1966) I 144: After funking about the pox and clap for a few days, I spend one evening to try to get her again. | ||
Riverina Recorder (Moulamein, NSW) 4 Sept. 2/7: The Euston shed challenged us, but funked at the last moment. | ||
Hooligan Nights 127: Don’t you fink I funked the job. | ||
People of the Abyss 56: Don’t funk; you can do it. | ||
Gold Bat [ebook] ‘[O'ne doesn’t expect a man in the Wrykyn first [fifteen] to funk’. | ||
Vultures of the City in Illus. Police News 15 Dec. 12/1: ‘I funked his bringing the cove here, but he laughed, told to cheese my patter, and went out’. | ||
Sun. Times (Perth) 12 July 1/1: Though the former has been practising [...] he funks the flutter. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 16 July 11/4: Angelina: ‘Oh, Edwin, this is so sudden!’ / Edwin (funking on it): ‘Quite a misunderstanding, I assure you. M-merely wanted to know if it was time to go.’. | ||
Madcap of the School 196: ‘She may be a blighter in some things, but she doesn’t funk!’. | ||
Human Side of Crook and Convict Life 50: He was a man who never let a pal down, a man who never ‘funked’. | ||
Haxby’s Circus 207: I feel as if it’d be funking not to go through ... like I always done. | ||
Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day (2000) 220: I banked on the fact that Nick would funk it. | ||
Boy’s Book of Cricket 103: He had some reason to believe Tony a coward [...] for by funking fast bowling Tony had helped to give Conway the victory. | ||
Dict. of Invective (1991) 167: Other variations, chiefly British, include [...] funk it, which is to panic and shrink away from something or to fail, or flunk, usually an exam in school. | ||
Tales from a City Farmyard 23: To ‘funk’ the bull and go around the safer way was a disgrace. |
2. (also funkify) to frighten or scare someone.
Dict. Sl. and Cant. | ||
Flash Dict. | ||
Modern Flash Dict. | ||
Sam Slick in England I 134: He might have knowed how to feel for other folks, and not funkify them so peskily. | ||
Pawnbroker’s Daughter 80: I’ll bet you an even sovereign Jem Sloucher’s got a rat that’ll funk Snobby [a dog]. | ||
Vocabulum. | ||
Little Ragamuffin 111: What do want to funk him for? | ||
Low-Life Deeps 250: You won’t funk me by talking about ends. | ||
My Secret Life (1966) III 471: The day after I saw Kitty walking by herself, that funked me again, so I cut away without her seeing me. | ||
Aus. Sl. Dict. 31: Funked, feared. | ||
Boy’s Own Paper 4 Mar. 363: If we don’t funk him I don’t think he can do so much harm as we imagined. | ||
Lonely Plough (1931) 176: Thorne’s funking you – that’s a sure thing! |
3. (UK Und.) to cheat.
Dict. Sl. and Cant n.p.: Funk to cheat. | ||
Flash Dict. | ||
Modern Flash Dict. 14: Funk – to cheat. | ||
Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835]. | ||
New and Improved Flash Dict. |
4. to try to back out of anything, to fight shy of, to wish or try to shirk or evade (an undertaking, duty etc), to get scared in a situation.
Salisbury & Winchester Jrnl 8 June 3: Back he comes, and fills his platter and his glass, and then funks it, and asks pardon of old Titus. | ||
Every Night Book: Advice to Tommy n.p.: Do not go out of your depth, unless you have available assistance at hand, in case you should funk [F&H]. | ||
‘Lag’s Lament’ (trans. of an untitled cant poem) in | (1829) IV 264: Jolly vas I, for I feared no evil, / Funked at nought, and pitched care to the devil.||
Essex Standard 8 Nov. 2/4: Though, at the present moment, he was funking, he had not had [etc.]. | ||
Tom Brown’s School-Days (1896) 241: ‘He’s funking; go in Williams,’ ‘Catch him up,’ ‘Finish him off,’ scream the small boys of the Slogger party. | ||
Hillyars and Burtons (1870) 187: Four men who had, to use a vulgar expression, ‘funked’ following the valiant scoundrel. | ||
Americanisms 603: Funk, to, and to funkify [...] are both in America used to express backing out from great fear, very much in the same way as to flunk. The metaphor is taken from the meaning of ‘smoking out,’ which is given to funking in the North of England – funk being a provincial name for a small, smoking fire, etymologically connected with the German Funke. | ||
Willoughby Captains (1887) 230: ‘Try it on, that’s all! You don’t think we funk you!’. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Oct. 14/2: [E]vidence incriminating certain leading bookmakers was ready to be laid before the committee [...], when Fordham funked making an admission of having been incapable on the eve of an important engagement, and preferred to let his thousands go. | ||
‘The Story of the Oracle’ in Roderick (1972) 281: After a few rounds Redmond funked and wanted to give in. | ||
Boy’s Own Paper 3 Aug. 692: You funk the fight, I suppose? | ||
Greenmantle (1930) 220: Does your heart fail you, my little Dutchman? You funk the English? | ||
Tell England (1965) 138: They’ll say you funked your master, if you don’t go up to Mr. Fillet’s study; I shall say you funked the boys, if you don’t go out to them. You must choose between their contempt and mine. | ||
Child of Norman’s End (1967) 257: The man sets out to be perfectly frank and free, but he funks it at the last. | ||
Otterbury Incident 37: Nick hasn’t told his guardians about it [...] He funked it. | ||
On the Beach 156: The spare [...] I suppose they give it to you in case you lose one of them, or funk it. | ||
Owning Up (1974) 88: All of us funked it except Mick. | ||
Kings Road 160: I funk Women’s Lib. | ||
(con. 1970s) An Eng. Madam 115: I funked the whole issue and tended to take my pleasures by myself. | ||
Prince Charming 291: You really must. If only to avoid the charge that you funked it. |
5. to worry about.
‘The Juniper Bough’ in Fal-Lal Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 13: Then Robert appear’d and the kiddies cried — / ‘See how Robert funks for his lushy bride!’. |
6. to fear, to be afraid of someone.
Siliad 24: Both factions praised my prowess, funked my might; / And with soft sawder strove my aid to gain. | ||
Golden Butterfly III 50: Eton boys no longer fight, because they funk one another. | ||
Boy’s Own Paper 3 June 562: Not because I funk meeting them. | ||
Lonely Plough (1931) 234: The old woman used to funk the tide something cruel. Guess she’ll be scared out of her skin, to-night! |
In derivatives
a shirker.
Young Tom Hall (1926) 355: Long-continued yoickings, and crackings, and [...] rout-him-outings, will tire even the slackest funkster. |