thunk
thunk Lexical Profile
thunk Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A dull, hollow sound made by a heavy impact or collision.
"The heavy oak door closed with a solid thunk that echoed down the hallway."
In computer programming, a subroutine generated to perform a delayed calculation, pass a parameter by name, or link incompatible software routines.
"In functional programming, a thunk wraps an expression so its evaluation can be deferred until the result is actually needed."
• verb
To make or strike with a dull, hollow sound.
"Ripe apples thunked onto the soft grass beneath the orchard trees."
To have thought or imagined (used as a nonstandard, dialectal, or humorous past tense and past participle of "think").
"Who would have thunk that the quietest student in our class would become a famous comedian?"
Word Nuance & Usage
As a past tense or past participle of "think" (standard "thought"), "thunk" is strictly dialectal or humorous, heard most often in the jocular rhetorical question "Who'd have thunk it?". In standard contexts, "thunk" is an onomatopoeic noun or verb describing a dull, hollow impact sound.
• Rhymes for thunk
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
As a dialectal or humorous past form of "think," attested from the late 18th century by analogy with strong verbs like "drink/drunk" and "sink/sunk." The sound sense arose independently in the mid-20th century as an imitative blend of "thud" and "clunk," while the computer science sense was coined around 1961 by ALGOL 60 compiler developers.