bung

This entry needs quotations to illustrate usage. If you come across any interesting, durably archived quotes then please add them!

 

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʌŋ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌŋ

From Medieval Dutch bonge, bonne or bonghe (“stopper”), or perhaps from French bonde, which may itself be either of Germanic origin or from Proto-Celtic *bunda—either way probably from puncta (“hole”), the feminine singular form of Latin punctus, perfect passive participle of pungō (“pierce into, prick”).

bung (plural bungs)

1. A stopper, alternative to a cork, often made of rubber, used to prevent fluid passing through the neck of a bottle, vat, a hole in a vessel etc.
   • 1996, Dudley Pope, Life in Nelson's Navy:

     With the heavy seas trying to broach the boat they baled — and eventually found someone had forgotten to put the bung in.

   • 2008, Christine Carroll, The Senator's Daughter:

     Andre pulled the bung from the top of a barrel, applied a glass tube with a suction device, and withdrew a pale, almost greenish liquid.

2. The cecum or anus, especially of a slaughter animal.
3. (slang) The human anus.
4. (slang) A bribe.
   • 2006 December 21, Leader, “Poorly tackled”, in the Guardian‎^[1]:

     It is almost a year since Luton Town's manager, Mike Newell, decided that whistle-blowing was no longer the preserve of referees and went public about illegal bungs.

   • 2021 April 26, Corinna Norrick-Rühl, Christian Alexander Peter, Lena Schüler, ““Pay to Play” in the German Book Trade?”, in Publishing Research Quarterly, volume 37, →DOI, pages 241–254:

     Is this a case of mere ‘bungs’ (a form of bribery) at play in the book trade, a success bought with massive advertising effort and distribution through the author’s drugstore chain?

5. The orifice in the bilge of a cask through which it is filled; bunghole.
6. (obsolete, slang) A sharper or pickpocket.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]:

     You filthy bung, away.

7. (UK, slang, obsolete) The landlord of a public house.
   • 1878, Fun, volumes 27-28, page 11:

     "Well, sir, I haven't got one," said the landlord, "or you should have it directly." […] "Could you oblige me with such a thing as a postage stamp?" "No," said the Bung; "don't keep 'em!"

bung (third-person singular simple present bungs, present participle bunging, simple past and past participle bunged)

1. (transitive) To plug, as with a bung.
   • 1810, Agricultural Surveys: Worcester (1810):

     It has not yet been ascertained, which is the precise time when it becomes indispensable to bung the cider. The best, I believe, that can be done, is to seize the critical moment which precedes the formation of a pellicle on the surface...

   • 2006, A. G. Payne, Cassell's Shilling Cookery:

     Put the wine into a cask, cover up the bung-hole to keep out the dust, and when the hissing sound ceases, bung the hole closely, and leave the wine untouched for twelve months.

2. (UK, Australia, transitive, informal) To put or throw something without care; to chuck.
   • 1996, Stanley Booth, quoting Keith Richards, Keith‎^[2], St. Martin's Publishing Group, →ISBN:

     Of course, the weird thing is that he found Marianne Faithfull at the same time and bunged it onto her, and it was a fucking hit, so already we're songwriters.

   • 2004, Bob Ashley, Food and cultural studies:

     And to sustain us while we watch or read, we go to the freezer, take out a frozen pizza, bung it in the microwave and make do.

3. (transitive) To batter, bruise; to cause to bulge or swell.
   • 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     [T]he Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.

4. (transitive) To pass a bribe to (someone).

Borrowed from Yagara bang (“dead”).

bung (not comparable)

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) Broken, not in working order.
   • 1922, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Karen Oslund (introduction), The Worst Journey in the World, 2004, page 365,

     The evening we reached the glacier Bowers^{[Henry Robertson Bowers]} wrote:

     […] My right eye has gone bung, and my left one is pretty dicky.

   • 1953, Eric Linklater, A Year of Space, page 206:

     ‘Morning Mrs. Weissnicht. I′ve just heard as how your washing-machine′s gone bung.’

   • 1997, Lin Van Hek, The Ballad of Siddy Church, page 219:

     It′s the signal box, the main switchboard, that′s gone bung!

   • 2006, Pip Wilson, Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, page 9:

     Henry had said, “Half a million bloomin′ acres. A quarter of a million blanky sheep shorn a year, and they can′t keep on two blokes. It′s not because wer′e union, mate. It′s because we′re newchums. Something′s gone bung with this country.”

• bung eye
• bung-full
• go bung

From bouget (“wallet, purse or bag”), from Middle English bogett, bouget, bowgette (“leather pouch”), from Old French bougette, diminutive of bouge (“leather bag, wallet”), from Late Latin bulga (“wallet, purse”), from Gaulish bolgā, from Proto-Celtic *bolgos (“sack, bag, stomach”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰólǵʰ-os (“skin bag, bolster”), from *bʰelǵʰ- (“to swell”).

• bong, bonge, boung, bounge

bung (plural bungs)

1. (obsolete, UK, thieves' cant) A purse.
   • 1592, Robert Green, The Thirde & Last Part of Conny-catching, Bodleian Library (Malone 575), London: John Lane. Reprinted in 1923, Harrison, G. B. (ed.), The Bodley Head Quartos III, Plainstow, Great Britain: Curwen Press, p. 22

     Oft thsi crew of mates met together, and said there was no hope of nipping the boung because he held open his gowne so wide, and walked in such an open place.

   • 1611, Thomas Middleton, “The Roaring Girl”, in Arthur Henry Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton‎^[3], volume 4, published 1885, act 5, scene 1, pages 128–129:

     Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.

• bung-nipper (“pickpocket”)

• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “bung”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
• Australian National Dictionary, 1988
• Macquarie Dictionary, Second edition, 1991
• Macquarie Slang Dictionary, Revised edition, 2000
• Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors (1889–1890) “bung”, in A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant […], volume I (A–K), Edinburgh: […] The Ballantyne Press, →OCLC, page 117.
• John S[tephen] Farmer, compiler (1890) “bung”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume I, [London: […] Thomas Poulter and Sons] […], →OCLC, page 383.
• “bung v.¹”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

From Proto-Albanian *bunga, of uncertain origin: (Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

• Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂ǵnos, nasalized variant of *bʰeh₂ǵos (“beech”);
• earlier Proto-Albanian *bunka, from *bʰeu-n-ik-o-, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰew(H)- (“to grow”);
• Proto-Indo-European *bʰn̥ǵʰ- (“to swell, be thick”) with a shift in meaning such as to “grow tall” (compare Sanskrit बंहते (baṃhate, “to grow”)) or “thick trunk”.

All of the above are problematic. Compare Dutch bonk (“clump, lump”) and German Bunge (“swelling, lump; tuber”) in the latter two cases.

bung m (plural bungje, definite bungu, definite plural bungjet)

1. sessile oak (Quercus petraea)

• dushk

• ilqe, lis, qarr, shpardh

bung (first-person possessive bungku, second-person possessive bungmu, third-person possessive bungnya)

1. A father figure, figurative father.

   Bung Karno ― Father Sukarno

2. (colloquial, used in the vocative) A term of address for someone, typically a man; A dude, fella, mac
3. (informal) Used to address a man whose name is unknown.

• abang
• ayah (“birth father”)
• kawan
• pak

• “bung” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

• (Johor-Selangor) IPA^(key): /boŋ/
• (Riau-Lingga) IPA^(key): /bʊŋ/
• Rhymes: -oŋ

bung

1. brother (older male sibling)

• abang (bang)
• kakak
• engko
• nana
• uda

• IPA^(key): /buŋ/

From Pre-Palauan *buŋa, from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *buŋa. Cognate with Malay bunga, Tagalog bunga.

bung

1. flower

From Japanese 分 (fun, “minute”).

bung

1. minute

• bung in Palauan Language Online: Palauan-English Dictionary, at tekinged.com.
• bung in Palauan-English Dictionary, at trussel2.com.
• bung in Lewis S. Josephs, Edwin G. McManus, Masa-aki Emesiochel (1977) Palauan-English Dictionary, University Press of Hawaii, →ISBN, page 30.

• (Thạch An – Tràng Định) IPA^(key): [ɓʊwŋ͡m˧˥]
• (Trùng Khánh) IPA^(key): [ɓʊwŋ͡m˦]

(classifier ăn) bung

1. a type of slatted baskets to carry clothes and books

   Synonym: choóng

• Léopold Michel Cadière (1910) Dictionnaire Tày-Annamite-Français [Tày-Vietnamese-French Dictionary]‎^[4] (in French), Hanoi: Impressions d'Extrême-Orient

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

bung

1. To gather, meet
   • 1989, Buk Baibel long Tok Pisin, Port Moresby: Bible Society of Papua New Guinea, Jenesis 1:9:

     Bihain God i tok olsem, “Wara i stap aninit long skai i mas i go bung long wanpela hap tasol, bai ples drai i kamap.” Orait ples drai i kamap.

     →New International Version translation

• bungim
• bungples

Compare bùng.

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [ʔɓʊwŋ͡m˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [ʔɓʊwŋ͡m˧˧]
• (Saigon) IPA^(key): [ʔɓʊwŋ͡m˧˧]

bung

1. to swell from inside out
2. to burst
3. (Central Vietnam) to steam, to simmer

   Synonyms: hầm, ninh