slang. [First mentioned as Oxford slang; possibly, as Lye suggests, a. Flemish fonck (Kilian), the origin of which is unknown.]
1. Cowering fear; a state of panic or shrinking terror. Blue funk: see BLUE a. 3.
1743. Lye, in Junius’ Etymologicum, s.v., Funk vox Academicis Oxon. familiaris . to be in a funk . vett. Flandris fonck est Turba, perturbatio . in de fonck siin, Turbari, tumultuari, in perturbatione versari.
1765. E. Sedgwick, in 10th Rep. Hist. MSS. Comm., App. I. 390. Poor Todd … is said to be in a violent funk.
1785. Grose, Dict. Vulg. Tongue, s.v., I was in a cursed funk.
1827. De Quincey in Blackw. Mag., XXI. 204. The horrid panic or ‘funk’ (as the men of Eton call it) in which Des Cartes must have found himself.
1839. Sir C. Napier, 9 April, in W. N. Bruce, Life, iv. (1885), 127. Funk is the order of the day.
1861. Hughes, Tom Brown at Oxf., xliv. There is no sign of anything like funk amongst our fellows.
1874. M. Collins, Transmigration, II. xi. 183. With all my heroism, I was in a frightful funk.
2. One who funks; a coward.
1860. in Bartlett, Dict. Amer., Funk … 2 a coward.
1888. Daily Tel., 13 April, 5/2. The public opinion among youth would … dub a ‘fellow’ a ‘funk.’
