Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A group of things growing close together; a cluster or clump.
  • noun A group of like items or individuals gathered or placed together.
  • noun Informal A group of people usually having a common interest or association.
  • noun Informal A considerable number or amount; a lot.
  • noun A small lump or swelling; a bump.
  • intransitive verb To gather or form into a cluster.
  • intransitive verb To gather together into a group.
  • intransitive verb To gather (fabric) into folds.
  • intransitive verb To form a cluster or group.
  • intransitive verb To be gathered together in folds, as fabric.
  • intransitive verb To swell; protrude.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To beat; strike.
  • To swell out in a protuberance; be protuberant or round.
  • To make a bunch or bunches of; bring together into a bunch or aggregate; concentrate: as, to bunch ballots for distribution; to bunch profits; to bunch the hits in a game of base-ball.
  • noun A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump.
  • noun A cluster, collection, or tuft of things of the same kind connected in growth or joined together mechanically: as, a bunch of grapes; a bunch of feathers on a hat.
  • noun More generally, a cluster or aggregate of any kind: used specifically of ducks, in the sense of a small flock.
  • noun In mining, a small mass of ore. See bunchy, 3, and pocket.
  • noun In flax-manuf., three bundles or 180,000 yards of linen yarn.
  • noun A unit of tale for osiers, reeds, teazels, and the like, with no general or fixed sense.
  • In sugar-beet growing, see block, transitive verb, 8.
  • noun In mining, the expanded portion of a pipe-line; a place where the pipe does not maintain a uniform cross-section, but is expanded.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To swell out into a bunch or protuberance; to be protuberant or round.
  • transitive verb To form into a bunch or bunches.
  • noun A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump; a hump.
  • noun A collection, cluster, or tuft, properly of things of the same kind, growing or fastened together.
  • noun (Mining) A small isolated mass of ore, as distinguished from a continuous vein.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A group of a number of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump. Usually fastened together.
  • noun cycling The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race.
  • noun An informal body of friends.
  • noun informal A considerable amount.
  • noun informal An unmentioned amount; a number.
  • noun forestry A group of logs tied together for skidding.
  • noun geology (mining) An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.
  • noun textiles The reserve yarn on the filling bobbin to allow continuous weaving between the time of indication from the midget feeler until a new bobbin is put in the shuttle.
  • noun An unfinished cigar, before the wrapper leaf is added.
  • verb transitive To gather into a bunch.
  • verb transitive To gather fabric into folds.
  • verb intransitive To form a bunch.
  • verb intransitive To be gathered together in folds
  • verb intransitive To protrude or swell

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any collection in its entirety
  • verb form into a bunch
  • noun an informal body of friends
  • noun a grouping of a number of similar things
  • verb gather or cause to gather into a cluster

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English bonche, probably from Flemish bondje, diminutive of bont, bundle, from Middle Dutch; see bundle.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English bunche 'hump, swelling', variant of *bunge (compare English dialect bung 'heap, grape bunch'), from Proto-Germanic *bunkōn, *bunkan, *bungōn (“heap, crowd”) (compare West Frisian bonke 'bone, lump, bump', German Bunge 'tuber', Danish bunke 'heap, pile'), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ-, *bʰéng̑ʰus (“thick, dense, fat”) (compare Hittite panku 'total, entire', Tocharian B pkante 'volume, fatness', Lithuanian búožė 'knob', Ancient Greek παχύς (pachýs) 'thick', Sanskrit बहु (bahú) 'thick; much').

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