Word.ws English Dictionary

waterfunk

waterfunk noun: someone who is afraid to go into water; a hydrophobe.

Noun

waterfunk (plural waterfunks)

  1. (UK, colloquial, dated) Someone who is afraid to go into water; a hydrophobe.
    • We remember in ancient times, when William IV. was king, on a magnificent sheet of brownish water, gracefully named Duck Puddle, a select little coterie of waterfunks (the title sufficiently explains itself—Etonicè frousts) would be unjustifiably but carefully placed on two old punts, or on a punt...1861 September 7, “Tale of the Tub”, in The Living Age, volume XIV (third series), number 901, Boston, M.A.: Littell, Son, & Co., →OCLC, page 613, column 1
    • "'Twasn't fair—remindin' one of bein' a water-funk. My first term, too. Heaps of chaps are—when they can't swim."1898 December, Rudyard Kipling, “Stalky”, in The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, volume IX, London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited […], →OCLC, page 190, column 2

Examples of waterfunk in a sentence

  • I'm no waterfunk,' and as though she feared that her courage might ooze away, she rose and drew the curtain that divided the hut from the door to the back.1933 December, R[alph] H[ale] Mottram, “A Trip to the Seaside. III. The Beach”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume 148, number 888, London...
  • Normally, I am a grade A waterfunk and the initial process of getting wet is agony but this was sheer bliss.1999, Henry Blofeld, It's Just Not Cricket! Henry Blofeld's Cricket Year, London: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 196:

Forms of waterfunk

pluralwaterfunks
alternative formwater-funk
alternative formwater funk

Origin of waterfunk

Compound of water + funk (“a coward”).

Questions about waterfunk

What does waterfunk mean?
Waterfunk means someone who is afraid to go into water; a hydrophobe.
How do you use waterfunk in a sentence?
I'm no waterfunk,' and as though she feared that her courage might ooze away, she rose and drew the curtain that divided the hut from the door to the back.
What part of speech is waterfunk?
Waterfunk is a noun.
What is the plural of waterfunk?
The plural of waterfunk is waterfunks.

Words near waterfunk in the dictionary

  1. waterfrontage
  2. waterfrontages
  3. waterfronted
  4. waterfronts
  5. waterful
  6. waterfunk
  7. waterfunks
  8. watergang
  9. watergangs
  10. watergate
  11. Watergate salad

Source and license

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