thunk

1 of 3

dialectal past tense and past participle of think

thunk

2 of 3

noun

: a flat hollow sound

thunk

3 of 3

verb

thunked; thunking; thunks

intransitive verb

: to produce a flat hollow sound : make a thunk

Examples of thunk in a Sentence

Noun The book landed on the floor with a thunk.
Recent Examples on the Web
Noun
Cahill shrugged and repositioned the boulder with a percussive thunk. Ben Goldfarb, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Feb. 2024 With the soft thunk of a bass guitar, one spotlight flickered on to illuminate Mary Weiss, the band’s leader. Paula Mejía, The Atlantic, 27 Jan. 2024 Our test car was mostly rattle-free, although there was an occasional thunk from the drivetrain under deceleration. Jonathan M. Gitlin, Ars Technica, 12 May 2023 But the cat loses its grip and plummets into the net and crash bag, landing with a thunk that almost tears the net from its captors’ hands. Peter Radetsky, Discover Magazine, 11 Nov. 2019 The Jutland opens with a thunk, like a vault door, and stays open via a liner lock. Matthew Every, Field & Stream, 4 Jan. 2024 The air was filled with cigarette smoke and the racket of clattering typewriters, editors yelling reminders of how many minutes to deadline, phones ringing, static from police scanners and the occasional thunk of a chair thrown in anger. Daniel Golden, ProPublica, 14 Oct. 2023 There’s a hiss and a thunk as the onboard jacks drop the car to the ground. Angus MacKenzie, Robb Report, 7 Dec. 2023 Not twigs, mind you, but big, heavy limbs that would fall straight down with a thunk and a shoosh of dead leaves onto my front lawn. Megha Satyanarayana, Scientific American, 8 Sep. 2023
Verb
Who woulda thunk that vinyl would be a perfectly good gift in 2023? Vulture Staff, Vulture, 28 Nov. 2023 The Coliseum is the place to be — who would have thunk it? John Shea, San Francisco Chronicle, 7 May 2023 Larry Fink, well, who’d have thunk it? Andrew Stuttaford, National Review, 24 Mar. 2022 Who woulda thunk it? Amby Burfoot, Outside Online, 13 May 2021 Who would have ever thunk that? Bill Keveney, USA TODAY, 6 May 2021 Walking indoors with a Gita is a little bit like trailing something on a string; round a corner too sharply and the robot will thunk into the wall. Kyle Stock, Fortune, 10 Dec. 2022 Who'd've thunk a bearded dragon would be just the right complement to these space-age, holographic nails? Chelsea Avila, Allure, 15 Aug. 2022 Designing a new car is the easy bit; building it to scale with doors that thunk nicely is really hard. Ben Oliver, Robb Report, 6 Feb. 2022

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'thunk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Noun

imitative

First Known Use

Noun

1947, in the meaning defined above

Verb

1949, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler
The first known use of thunk was in 1947

Dictionary Entries Near thunk

Cite this Entry

“Thunk.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thunk. Accessed 29 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

thunk

verb
ˈthəŋk
: to make a flat hollow sound
thunk noun

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