Word.ws English Dictionary

dunch

/dʌnt͡ʃ/

dunch verb: to knock against; to hit, punch.

Verb

dunch (third-person singular simple present dunches, present participle dunching or dunchin, simple past and past participle dunched)

  1. (Geordie) To knock against; to hit, punch
  2. (Geordie) To crash into; to bump into.
  3. (Scotland) To gore with the horns, as a bull.
  4. (UK) To push, jog, or nudge, especially with the elbow.

Noun (1)

dunch (plural dunches)

  1. (dialectal) A push; knock; bump.
    • And just at the same time the tide caught the brig, and threw the wind out of her sails. She came round into the wind like a top, and the next moment struck the reef with such a dunch as threw us all flat upon the deck, and came near to shake Mr. Riach from his place upon the mast.1886 May 1 – July 31, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kidnapped, being Memoirs of the Adventures of David Balfour in the Year 1751: […], London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 1886, →OCLC
  2. A fat hit from a claggy lie.

Noun (2)

dunch

  1. (informal, rare) A leisurely meal between lunch and dinner in the late afternoon or early evening (about 3-5 p.m.), usually instead of lunch or dinner.
    • I have a lunchtime meeting tomorrow, so let's have dunch together instead.
    Synonyms:
    linner, lupper

Proper noun capitalized: Dunch

Dunch (plural Dunches)

  1. A surname.

dunch meaning in Persian

dunch in Persian

meal between lunch and dinner
عصرانه 'asrâne

Synonyms of dunch

Forms of dunch

Verb
third-person singular presentdunches
present participledunching
present participledunchin
past participledunched
pastdunched
alternative formdunsh
Noun
pluraldunches
Proper noun
pluralDunches

Origin of dunch

From Middle English dunchen, of uncertain origin. Possibly from the noun (see below); or of North Germanic origin, related to Old Swedish diunga (“to hit, knock”), dialectal Swedish dunka (“to beat”); or from Middle English dengen, from Old English denġan, denċġan (“to knock, ding”), from Proto-Germanic *dangijaną (“to bang, knock”). Compare English dinge.

From Middle English dunche, perhaps from Old English *dynċ, from Proto-Germanic *dunkiz. Compare Old Norse dykr, dynkr (“a crashing noise”), Danish dunk (“a blow”), Swedish dunk (“a thump, clap”), Norwegian dunk (“a knock, bump”).

Blend of dinner + lunch, probably in imitation of brunch.

Words that rhyme with dunch

Questions about dunch

What does dunch mean?
Dunch means to knock against; to hit, punch.
What is dunch in Persian?
Dunch in Persian is عصرانه ('asrâne). See Dunch meaning in Persian.
What part of speech is dunch?
Dunch can be a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce dunch?
Dunch is pronounced /dʌnt͡ʃ/.
What is the past tense of dunch?
The past tense of dunch is dunched.

Words near dunch in the dictionary

  1. duncely
  2. dunceries
  3. duncery
  4. dunces
  5. duncey
  6. dunch
  7. dunched
  8. duncher
  9. dunchers
  10. dunches
  11. dunchi

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: dunch (page history and authors); Dunch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-dunch.wav.

Cite this entry: “dunch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/dunch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.