Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use funk in a sentence

34 example sentences · noun, verb

Funk means foul or unpleasant smell, especially body odor. Example: “The foulest stench is in the air; the funk of 40,000 years and grisly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom.”

Examples of funk by meaning

nounFoul or unpleasant smell, especially body odor.

  • The foulest stench is in the air; the funk of 40,000 years and grisly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom.1982, “Thriller”, in Rod Temperton (lyrics), Quincy Jones (music), Thriller, performed by Michael Jackson (featuring Vincent Price), Epic...

verbTo perform funk music.

  • From the earliest part of this decade when he funked in relative obscurity to his days as a superstar with the release of his Batman soundtrack last summer, I could almost always count on Prince.1989 December 17, Christopher Wittke, “On The Edge In The '80s”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 23, page 9

verbFuck (the taboo swear word).

  • But otherwise, paying almost 20 bucks for pizzazz between a few tortillas in Huntsville, funk that.2023 November 25, Matt Wake, “Five meals under $10 that I love from local Huntsville restaurants (and you will, too!)”, in The Huntsville...

nounMental depression.

  • I've been in a funk lately, I fell into a funk, I slipped into a funk, I was stuck in a funk
  • it helped me get out of a funk

nounA state of fear or panic, especially cowardly.

  • Were you in a funk?1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 4
  • Holmes would say, “In a funk, eh?” Holmes would get him.1925 May 14, Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway, London: Leonard and Virginia Woolf at The Hogarth Press, →OCLC

More sentences with funk

  • I’d like to see more experimentation in signal wave slush and future funk slush, for example.2022 August 20, Tori-Lynne Davis, “An interview with slushwave artist desert sand feels warm at night”, in Bearded Gentleman Music…. From the entry slushwave
  • D&B music emerged from a fusion of big beat, breakbeat hardcore, jungle, techno, funk and electronica.2021 May 6, Ewa Mazierska, Tony Rigg, Les Gillon, The Evolution of Electronic Dance Music, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 194. From the entry D&B
  • I'm too sober to be drunk, too sober to be anything but in a funk.2014, i.P. audAx, Relapse and Rescuers. From the entry pondersome
  • “I don't know; we've lost line-of-sight, and I think my com is funking out, too.2012, W. G. Marshall, Enormity. From the entry funk out
  • They dance to all kinds of music—Congolese, Malinke, Zuluka, American, rap, reggae, funk, and other styles.2009, Timothy L. Gall, Jeneen Hobby, editors, Worldmark Encyclopedia of Cultures and Daily Life: Africa, 2nd edition, volume 1, Farmington…. From the entry Bujumburan
  • It just happens that mine is bohemian-Victoriental funk because of the things that have influenced me.2008, Robin Brown, Jason Boyd, Country Living A Bit of Velvet and a Dash of Lace. From the entry Victoriental
  • Anna awakens in a funk most days, and her mother’s chipperness only deepens it.2007 March 25, Liesl Schillinger, “What I’d Be Without You”, in New York Times. From the entry chipperness
  • All along the trench men were crawling out of funk holes.1991, Pat Barker, Regeneration (The Regeneration Trilogy), Penguin, published 2014, page 138. From the entry funk hole
  • Major Whittlesey came out of his funk hole, and went among the men, spreading the cheering words.1919, Americans Defending Democracy: Our Soldiers' Own Stories, World's War Stories Inc., p332 from the Story of the Lost Battalion. From the entry funk hole
  • A lot of people would say that future funk just rips off the original song, but I disagree.2019 November 12, Margaret Cataldi, “Classical composer explains future funk”, in The Prospector, archived from the original on 18 Dec 2020. From the entry future funk
  • Maupin shines, particularly at 4:48 where he funks out, completely eschewing the tempo and expanding the palette of the band.2018, Eric Wendell, Experiencing Herbie Hancock: A Listener's Companion. From the entry funk out
  • It kind of smells like old funk juice.2010, Wenonah Doret, editor, Gym, Tanning, Laundry: The Official Jersey Shore Quote Book, Gallery Books, →ISBN, page 75. From the entry pickley
  • What they share, apart from their Texas roots, is a viselike grasp of hard-bop fundamentals and an easy affinity for funk.2009 January 9, Nate Chinen, “Jazz Listings”, in New York Times. From the entry viselike
  • Not many artists could pull off such a variety of styles (funk, post-disco, rock, easy listening, ballads) back then.a. 2008, M. Heyliger, A State-of-the-Art Pop Album. From the entry post-disco
  • “Wolves (Song of the Shepherd’s Dog)” trades folkiness for something like funk, hinting at War and Talking Heads.2007 September 24, The New York Times, “New CDs”, in New York Times. From the entry folkiness
  • The country was fat with peacetime prosperity, but lots of people were afflicted with a postwar funk called weltschmerz.2001 December, Susan Reifer, “Skiing is Good: Carry the Solitude and Peace of the Mountains with You”, in Rick Kahl, editor, Skiing…. From the entry weltschmerz
  • To pull you out of the funk you've been in since Christmas, Man Teach orchestrated some bow-chicka-wow-wow time for you and Boy Wonder.2014, Madeline Freeman, The Naturals Trilogy. From the entry bow-chicka-wow-wow
  • The studio-oriented music would typically sound like jazz funk or techno, a unique style of the demoscene that became known as 'doskpop'.2013, Karen Collins, From Pac-Man to Pop Music: Interactive Audio in Games and New Media. From the entry doskpop
  • Another local style — the Senegalese funk called mbalax — arrived with the singer Fallou Dieng, a protégé of the Senegalese superstar Youssou N’Dour.2008 January 15, Jon Pareles, “To See (and Hear) the World in Five Hours: Unique Sounds Ripe for Import”, in New York Times. From the entry mbalax
  • And just when things seem darkest, turkeys pile it on by going silent, acting weird, getting henned-up, or just otherwise going into a funk.2006, Brian Lovett, Hunting Pressured Turkeys, page 145. From the entry henned-up
  • Hendryx has laid down eight tracks that flow seamlessly through funk, disco, gospel, rock and reggae, with nary a false step along the way.1983 August 6, Rob Schmieder, “Disco Consumers And Rock Activists”, in Gay Community News, page 15. From the entry diversity
  • I intended handing you the crown, but when I got here and realized how cursed unpleasant it might be I funked it.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries. From the entry cursed
  • The sound was electro, and bass-laced synthetic dance pop would soon start streaming in from producers in Paris, dizzying the twenteens of Britain with its accessible, anthemic funk.2015, Rose Bretécher, Pure, →ISBN. From the entry accessible
  • He has been borrowing from Brazilian baile funk for years, and the first release on his new record label, Mad Descent, is by the Brazilian group Bonde do Role.2007 March 30, “Pop and Rock Listings”, in New York Times. From the entry baile
  • Ice Cold Daydream" bastes the bayou funk of the Meters in swirling psychedelia, while "Sweet Thang," a swampy blues cowritten with his dad, sounds like something from Dr.2001 April 20, Peter Margasak, “Almost Famous”, in Chicago Reader. From the entry baste
  • Evidence for cannibalism abounds - even if circumstantial - both from the modern world and throughout history, but academic anthropology has found itself in a funk of denial.2000 September 7, Henry Gee, “Eating people - is it bad taste?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 09 May 2014. From the entry abound
  • On side two, a number of songs under the collective title “Home Stuff” peacefully share the poles between melodic, upbeat, gentle guitar prog-rock, funk, and a straightahead rocker.1990, Option, Los Angeles, Calif., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 142. From the entry unannoyingly

Meaning of funk

  1. noun Foul or unpleasant smell, especially body odor.
  2. noun A style of music derived from 1960s soul music, with elements of rock and other styles, characterized by a prominent bass guitar, dance-friendly sound, a strong emphasis on the downbeat, and much syncopation.
  3. verb To emit an offensive smell; to stink.

Full definition of funk

Questions about funk in a sentence

How do you use funk in a sentence?
Funk is used as a noun and verb. For example: “The foulest stench is in the air; the funk of 40,000 years and grisly ghouls from every tomb are closing in to seal your doom.”
What is a short sentence with funk?
“Were you in a funk?”
What does funk mean?
Funk means foul or unpleasant smell, especially body odor.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: funk (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use funk in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/funk. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.