hunched

Verb

hunch (third-person singular simple present hunches, present participle hunching, simple past and past participle hunched)

1. (intransitive) To bend the top of one's body forward while raising one's shoulders.
   • Don't hunch over your computer if you want to avoid neck problems.

   Synonyms:

   slouch, stoop, lean

2. (transitive) To raise (one's shoulders) (while lowering one's head or bending the top of one's body forward); to curve (one's body) forward (sometimes followed by up).
   • They stood outside the door hunching themselves against the rain and puffing on their cigarettes.
3. (intransitive) To walk (somewhere) while hunching one's shoulders.
   • […] the figure hunched up the road.1955, J. P. Donleavy, chapter 2, in The Ginger Man, New York: Dell, page 9

   Synonyms:

   slouch

4. (transitive) To thrust a hump or protuberance out of (something); to crook, as the back.
   • […] thou art all one errour; soul and body.
     The first young tryal of some unskill’d Pow’r;
     Rude in the making Art, and Ape of Jove.
     Thy crooked mind within hunch’d out thy back;
     And wander’d in thy limbs:1679, John Dryden, Nathaniel Lee, Oedipus, London: R. Bentley and M. Magnes, act I, page 6
5. (transitive) To push or jostle with the elbow; to push or thrust against (someone).
   • After this, we saw a great Troop of Women upon the High-way to Hell, with their Bags; and their fellows, at their Heels, ever, and anon, hunching, and Justling one Another.1667, “The Sixth Vision of Hell”, in Roger L’Estrange, transl., The Visions of Dom Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, London: H. Herringman, pages 182–183

   Synonyms:

   elbow, nudge

6. (colloquial, intransitive) To have a hunch, or make an intuitive guess.
   • People who are instinctive hunchers go through some such process at every decision-making point of their lives. It is likely that children often make decisions and discern truths by hunching.2010, Max Gunther, The Luck Factor

See all 11 meanings of hunch