Link Centre Dictionary

thunk

UK/θʌŋk/ US/ˈθʌnk/ uncommon

noun

1.

a dull hollow sound

  • “the basketball made a thunk as it hit the rim”

Origin

Said by the inventors to be from the irregular jocular past tense of think (see Etymology 1), being coined when they realised that the type of an argument in ALGOL 60 could be predetermined at compile time (with a little compile-time “thought”).

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.