Forms: 5 bonche, 5–6 bunche, bounche, 6–7 bounch, (7 bunsh), 6– bunch. [Of uncertain origin; prob. onomatopæic; cf. the synonymous BULCH, also hunch, lunch (dial.).
As to the relation between BUNCH sb.1, v.2, and BUNCH sb.2, v.1, cf. BUMP. See also BOUCHE sb.2; possibly the bouch(e of the Cursor M. should be read bonch(e, and identified with the present word.]
† 1. A protuberance, esp. on the body of an animal; a hump on the back (of a human being, a camel, etc.); a goitre; a swelling, tumor. Obs.
c. 1325. Body & Soul, in Map’s Poems (1841), 344. Summe were ragged and tayled, Mid brode bunches on heore bak.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVIII. xix. (1495), 778. A camell of Arabia hathe two bonches in the backe.
1543. Traheron, Vigo’s Chirurg., I. x. 9. The gibbosyte or bounch of the liver.
1598. Gerard, Herbal, I. xl. 60. The leauen made of Wheate … openeth all swellings, bunches, tumors and felons.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 86/1. Bunch, or bunched eminencies … are knots in sprouts or shoots above others in the … Lance.
1728. Morgan, Algiers, I. iv. 100. The rider sits behind the Bunch or Hump.
1816. Keith, Phys. Bot., II. 378. Bunches … on the branches of the Birch-tree … known … by the name of witches’ knots.
1826. J. F. Cooper, Mohicans, I. i. 10. His nether garment was of yellow nankeen, closely fitted to the shape, and tied at his bunches of knees by large knots of white ribbon, a good deal sullied by use.
† b. In plur. A disease of horses. ? Obs.
1706. Phillips, Bunches, Knobs, Warts and Wens, are Diseases in Horses.
1715. in Kersey.
1721–90. in Bailey.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Bunches, in horses, called also knobs, warts, and wens, are diseases arising from foul meat, bruises, hard labour, or the like; whereby the blood becoming putrefied and foul, occasions such excrescences.
1775. in Ash.
† c. ‘The horn of a young stag.’ Obs.
1710. Blome, Gentl. Recreat., 79 [referred to by Halliwell].
d. See quot.
1884. Pall Mall Gaz., 17 May, 4. A cigar consists of three parts, the wrapper, the bunch, and the filler.
† 2. A bundle (of straw). Obs. Also a bundle of reeds, or teasels, containing a definite quantity. dial.
c. 1450. Henryson, Test. Cres. For thy bed tak now a bunche of stro.
1863. Morton, Cycl. Agric. (E. D. S.), Bunch (Camb.), of oziers, a bundle 45 inches round at the band; of reeds, a bundle 28 inches round, formerly an ell. (Ess.) of teazles, 25 heads, otherwise a glean. (Glouc.), of teazles, 20; a glen; of king’s teazles, 10. (Yks., N. R.), of teazles, 10.
3. A collection or cluster of things of the same kind, either growing together (as a bunch of grapes), or fastened closely together in any way (as a bunch of flowers, a bunch of keys); also a portion of a dress gathered together in irregular folds.
1570. Levins, Manip., 188. A bunche of flowers, floretum.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. ii. xi. On his craven crest A bounch of heares discolourd diversly.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., I. ii. 44. Bunches of Keyes at their girdles. Ibid. (1610), Temp., IV. 112. Vines, with clustring bunches growing.
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (1840), I. xiv. 244. I gave him … a bunch of raisins.
1821. Byron, in Moore, Life (1838), 490. The old woman … brought me two bunches of violets.
1842. Tennyson, Day-Dream, 64. Grapes with bunches red as blood.
1873. Sir J. Herschel, Pop. Lect. Sc., III. § 32. 119. That comet … was a mere bunch of vapours.
4. fig. A collection, ‘lot.’
1622. Jackson, Judah, 76. See what persons God hath picked out of all the bunch of the Patriarches, Prophets, Judges, and Kings.
1633. Sanderson, Serm., II. 39. Though … he do but only name it [charity] in the bunch among other duties.
1687. W. Sherwin, in Hist. Magd. Coll. (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), 79. As very a rascal as any in the Bunch.
a. 1784. Johnson, in Boswell (1816), IV. 151. I am glad the Ministry is removed. Such a bunch of imbecility never disgraced a country.
1832. Athenæum, No. 243. 355. Two friars are bargaining for a bunch of cherubs.
Mod. She’s the best of the bunch.
5. spec. † a. A pack of cards (obs.) b. A flock of waterfowl. c. (U.S.) A herd of cattle.
1563. Foxe, in Latimer’s Serm. & Rem. (1845), Introd. 12. The best coat card … in the bunch.
1608. Middleton, Trick to Catch, &c. II. i. The best card in all the bunch.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xxv. (1748), 366. The lesser dibbling teale In bunches.
1835. E. Jesse, Glean. Nat. Hist., Ser. III. 146. They [ducks] come in what are called bunches … sometimes … 150 ducks in a bunch.
1884. G. Pomeroy Keese, in Harper’s Mag., July, 294/2. The expense of herding a ‘bunch’ of cattle is one dollar per head annually.
6. Mining. A small isolated body of ore, etc.
1815. W. Phillips, Outl. Min. & Geol. (1818), 160. The ores both of copper and tin principally occur in quantities which … occupy … but a small comparative portion of the vein, and are … termed bunches.
1865. J. T. F. Turner, Slate Quarries, 20. It took seven years to reach a good bunch of slate.
7. Comb., as † bunch-back, a back with a ‘bunch’ or hump; † bunch-backed a., hump-backed; bunch-grass, Festuca scabrella, of N. America; bunch-word (rare), a word formed by agglutination.
1618. Holyday, Juvenal, 191. Virginia would exchange her grace Of shape for Rutila’s *bunch-back.
1677. W. Charleton, Exercit. de diff. et nom. Animal. (ed. 2), 8. The little Scythian Ox with a bunch-back.
1519. Horman, Vulg., 31. No man shulde rebuke and scorne a blereyied man or gogylyed … or blabberlypped, or *bounchebacked.
1650. Fuller, Pisgah, IV. vi. 115. Who … affirme all Jews to be crooked, or bunch-backed.
1866. Intell. Observ., No. 53. 324. The ground under the timber, is here thickly clothed with bunch-grass, so called from its habit of growing in tufts.
1725. Dudley, in Phil. Trans., XXXIII. 258. The *Bunch or humpback Whale, is distinguished from the right Whale, by having a Bunch standing in the Place where the Fin does in the Finback.
1862. D. Wilson, Pre-hist. Man, II. xix. 136. Like the *bunch-words, as they have been called, of the American languages, compounded of a number of parts.
