Word.ws English Dictionary

punk out

punk out verb: to give up or cravenly abandon something difficult.

Verb

punk out (third-person singular simple present punks out, present participle punking out, simple past and past participle punked out)

  1. (intransitive, slang) To give up or cravenly abandon something difficult.
    • When the going got tough, he punked out.
  2. (slang, transitive, almost always used in the passive voice) To treat as a punk (either as a worthless person or the bottom in a male-male relationship, especially a nonconsenting prison relationship).
    • He knew if he didn't stand up for himself, he'd be punked out by someone stronger.

Forms of punk out

third-person singular presentpunks out
present participlepunking out
past participlepunked out
pastpunked out

Questions about punk out

What does punk out mean?
Punk out means to give up or cravenly abandon something difficult.
What part of speech is punk out?
Punk out is a verb.
What is the past tense of punk out?
The past tense of punk out is punked out.

Words near punk out in the dictionary

  1. punk
  2. punk house
  3. punk houses
  4. punk jazz
  5. punk music
  6. punk out
  7. punk panties
  8. punk pop
  9. punk rock
  10. punk rocker
  11. punk rockers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: punk out (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: En-au-punk out.ogg.

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