Funk

subs. (old).—1.  Tobacco smoke; also a powerful stink. Cf., Ger., funke; Walloon funki.

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew. What a FUNK here is! What a thick smoke. Smoak of Tobacco is here! Ibid. Here’s a damn’d FUNK, here’s a great stink.

  2.  (vulgar).—A state of fear; trepidation, nervousness, or cowardice; a STEW (q.v.). Generally, with an intensitive, e.g., a ‘mortal,’ ‘awful,’ ‘bloody,’ ‘blue,’ or ‘pissing’ FUNK. Fr., la guenette; le flubart (thieves’); la frousse (also = diarrhœa). It., filo = thread.

  1796.  WOLCOT (‘Peter Pindar’), Pindarina, p. 59.

  1819.  T. MOORE, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 21. Up he rose in a FUNK.

  1821.  P. EGAN, Tom and Jerry (1890), p. 91. I was in a complete FUNK.

  1837.  R. H. BARHAM, The Ingoldsby Legends (‘Look at the Clock’), ed. 1862, p. 39.

  1848.  RUXTON, Life in the Far West, p. 9. The mules, which was a-snorting with FUNK and running before the Injuns … followed her right into the corral, and thar they was safe.

  1850.  The Literary World (New York), 30 Nov. So my friend’s fault is timidity … I grant, then, that the FUNK is sublime, which is a true and friendly admission.

  1856.  T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, II. ii. 196. If I was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue FUNK.

  1859.  WHITTY, Political Portraits, p. 30. Lord Clarendon did not get through the business without these failures, which result from the intellectual process termed freely FUNK.

  1861.  Macmillan’s Magazine, p. 211. I was in a real blue FUNK.

  1861.  T. HUGHES, Tom Brown at Oxford, ch. xxxvi. I was in a real blue FUNK and no mistake.

  1870.  London Figaro, 19 Oct. After the Fire. He was in a mortal FUNK, no doubt.

  1871.  MAXWELL, in Life (1882), xvi., 382. Certainly χλωρὸν δέος is the Homeric for a blue FUNK.

  1888.  Cassell’s Saturday Journal, 29 Dec., p. 305. You’re always in a FUNK about nothing at all.

  3.  (schoolboys’).—A coward.

  1882.  T. A. GUTHRIE (‘F. Anstey’), Vice Versâ, ch. v. Bosher said, ‘Let’s cut it,’ and be and Peebles bolted. (They were neither of them FUNKS, of course, but they lost their heads.)

  Verb. (common).—1.  To smoke out. See FUNK THE COBBLER.

  1720.  D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, vi., 303.

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v. FUNK, to smoke, figuratively to smoke or stink through fear.

  1823.  W. T. MONCRIEFF, Tom and Jerry, ii., 2. Tom. But, I say, only see how confoundedly the dustman’s getting hold of Logic,—we’ll FUNK him. (Tom and Jerry smoke Logic.) Log. Oh, hang your cigars, I don’t like it; let’s have no FUNKING.

  1841.  Punch, I., p. 172. Look here … isn’t it considerable clear they’re a all FUNKING like burnt cayenne in a clay pipe, or couldn’t they have made a raise somehow to get a ship of their own, or borrow one to send after that caged-up coon of a Macleod.

  2.  (common).—To terrify; to shrink or quail through nervousness or cowardice.

  1858.  A. MAYHEW, Paved with Gold, Bk. III., ch. vi., p. 294. Perhaps we’re only FUNKING ourselves useless, and it mayn’t be the farm chaps at all.

  3.  (colloquial).—To fear; to hesitate; to shirk; and (among pugilists) TO COME IT (q.v.).

  1836.  W. H. SMITH, The Individual, ‘The Thieves’ Chaunt.’

  1846.  Punch, X., p. 163, ‘The Fight of the Crescent.’

  1848.  J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers. To FUNK right out o’ p’lit’cal strife ain’t thought to be the thing.

  1873.  M. COLLINS, Squire Silchester’s Whim, ch. xvii. Come along! don’t FUNK it, old fellow.

  ENGLISH SYNONYMS.—To come it; to lose one’s guts; to shit one’s breeches; to get the needle (athletic).

  FRENCH SYNONYMS.—Paniquer (thieves’: Panique = sudden fright); blaguer (familiar: = to swagger: Il avait l’air de blaguer mais il n’était pas à la noce = he put on a lot of side, but he didn’t like it); avec la cœur en gargousse (sailors’ = with sinking heart); avoir une fluxion (popular: fluxion = inflammation); avoir la flemme (popular: also = to be idle); avoir le trac or trak (general); foirer (popular: foire = excrement); léziner (popular: also = to cheat).

  SPANISH SYNONYM.—Pajarear.

  ITALIAN SYNONYM.—Filare (= to run: Fr., filer).

  4.  (colloquial).—To be nervous; to lose heart.

  1827.  W. CLARKE, Every Night Book, p. 27. Note this: Do not go out of your depth, unless you have available assistance at hand in case you should FUNK.

  1856.  T. HUGHES, Tom Brown’s School-days, II. v. He’s FUNKING; go in, Williams!

  1857.  W. T. MONCRIEFF, The Bashful Man, ii., 4. Ah! Gyp, hope I sha’n’t get plucked; FUNK confoundedly: no matter, I must put a bold face on it.

  1857.  TOM HOOD, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 144. I have seen him out with the governor’s hounds: he FUNKED at the first hedge, and I never saw him again!

  1863.  C. READE, Hard Cash, ii., p. 135. I … told him I hadn’t a notion of what he meant. ‘O yes, I did,’ he said, ‘Captain Dodd’s fourteen thousand pounds! It had passed through my hands.’ Then I began to FUNK again at his knowing that…. I was flustered, ye see.

  1865.  H. KINGSLEY, The Hillyars and the Burtons, ch. xxxiii. The sound of the table falling was the signal for a rush of four men from the inner room, who had to use a vulgar expression, FUNKED following the valiant scoundrel Sykes, but who now tried to make their escape, and found themselves hand to hand with the policemen.

  1871.  Morning Advertiser, 11 Sept.

  1890.  Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Oct., p. 2, col. 1. They wanted badly to get one steamer loaded and sent to New Zealand. The non-union men FUNKED loading her on account of the union men.

  1891.  Licensed Victuallers’ Gazette, 13 Feb. Smith’s friends thought he was FUNKING, and shouted to Tom to go in and punch him.

  5.  (schoolboys’).—To move the hand forward unfairly in playing marbles; to FUDGE (q.v.).

  1811.  GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum. TO FUNK. To use an unfair motion of the hand in plumping at taw.

  1851–61.  H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, i., p. 144. I’ve noticed them, too, playing at ring-taw, and one of their exclamations is ‘Knuckle down fair, and no FUNKING.’

  TO FUNK THE COBBLER, verb. phr. (schoolboys’).—To smoke out a schoolmate: a trick performed with asafœtida and cotton stuffed into a hollow tube or cow’s horn; the cotton being lighted, the smoke is blown through the keyhole.

  1698–1700.  WARD, The London Spy, Pt. IX., p. 197. We smoak’d the Beans almost as bad as unlucky schoolboys us’d to do the COBLERS, till they sneak’d off one by one, and left behind ’em more agreeable Company.

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.

  See also PETER FUNK.