▪ I. bunker, n.1
(ˈbʌŋkə(r))
Also 9 bunkart.
[Etymology uncertain; cf. bunk and banker4.]
1. A seat or bench (‘serving also for a chest’ Jamieson). Sc.
| a 1758 Ramsay Poems (1844) 91 Ithers frae aff the bunkers sank. 1790 Burns Tam o' Shanter 119 At winnock-bunker..sat auld Nick. 1818 Scott Hrt. Midl. ix, No seat accommodated him so well as the ‘bunker’ at Woodend. |
| attrib. 1831 Hone's Year-book 1127 Upon the bunker seat of the window they found three bottles. |
2. An earthen seat or bank in the fields.
dial.| 1805 Leslie of Powis, &c. (Jam.) The fishers..built an open bunkart or seat. 1880 Antrim & Down Gloss. (E.D.S.), Bunker, a low bank at a road side, a road side channel. |
3. a. A receptacle for coal on board ship; sometimes also on land.
| 1839 Parl. Report Steam Vessel Accid. 74 Neither the bunkers nor the coal-hold were cleared out so often as they should be. 1851 Illust. Lond. News 24 Bunkers to hold 890 tons of coal. 1864 Times 10 Dec., The Cadmus has..her bunkers filled with upwards of 200 tons of coal. 1876 Davis Polaris Exp. xviii. 450 The bunkers and bulkheads below deck were torn down. 1921 Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §279 Bunkerman..tips wagons to discharge coal or iron into bunkers at ironworks. 1930 Engineering 16 May 629/3 This conveyor distributes the coal to three bunkers. |
b. pl. = bunker coal (see 5 below).
| 1883 Gresley Gloss. Coal-m., Bunkers, steam coal consumed on board ship. 1898 Daily News 18 Apr. 11/5 More money has to be paid for steam, bunkers, and gas coals. 1935 Economist 5 Jan. 48/2 Prime unscreened bunkers, 13s. 6d. |
c. = bunker-man (see 5 below).
| 1921 Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §744 Bunker, tips coal from baskets or trucks into coal bins or bunkers as they are lowered by hoist... Collier..includes bunker, trimmer, loader. |
4. a. Golf: ‘A sandy hollow formed by the wearing away of the turf on the {oqq}links{cqq}’ (
Sc.). Now, an artificial sand-hole with a built-up face; also, any natural obstruction (as water, long grass, etc.) on a golf-course.
| 1824 Scott Redgauntlet Let. x, They sat cosily niched into what you might call a bunker, a little sand-pit. 1857 Chambers Inform. People II. 693/2 This club is useful too for elevating a ball..over..bunkers, whins, etc. 1857 H. B. Farnie in J. L. Stewart Golfiana Miscellanea (1887) 119 The surface is dotted over at frequent intervals with sandy holes, technically called bunkers, from two to six feet deep, of irregular forms and sizes. 1867 Cornh. Mag. Apr. 496 A fellow who puts you into a whin or a bunker every other stroke. 1893 H. G. Hutchinson Golfing 60 Sometimes you may be driven to invent hazards, by throwing up banks, cutting bunkers or planting bushes. 1897 Encycl. Sport I. 458/1 Between the teeing-ground and the putting-green should be found, whether they be natural or artificially formed, various ‘hazards’ in the shape of sand-pits or ‘bunkers’. Ibid. 472/1 Bunker, originally a natural sand hole on the golf course. Now used also of artificially made hazards with built-up faces. 1955 Times 17 May 5/6 Mrs. Smith cut her second shot into the rough and put her recovery into a bunker on the right. |
b. fig.| 1900 A. Birrell in Cornhill Mag. Mar. 313 If you want to find the natural man at work you must look for him in the bunkers of life. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 28 Oct. 16/1 The Princess frock is a bunker not to be cleared by any economies or adaptations. |
c. A military dug-out; a reinforced concrete shelter.
| 1939 War Pictorial 13 Oct. 29/2 A Nazi field gun hidden in a cemented ‘bunker’ on the Western front. 1945 Over-All Report (U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, Europ. War) 30 Sept. 104/1 Germany promised its people ‘bombproof’ shelters for all, and planned the construction of extensive above-ground concrete structures known as ‘bunkers’. 1947 H. Trevor-Roper Last Days of Hitler iv. 117 A curved stair led downwards to a still deeper and slightly larger bunker. This was..Hitler's own bunker, the stage on which the last act of the Nazi melodrama was played out. 1949 F. Maclean Eastern Approaches iii. iv. 354 The turf-covered ‘bunkers’ in which the Germans and Usta{sbreve}e had made their last stand. |
5. attrib. and
Comb. (See also sense 1.) Also (sense 4)
bunker-iron;
bunker coal,
spec. steam coal; also, coal carried by a steamer for its own use and not as cargo;
bunker-man (see
quot. 1921).
| 1885 Pall Mall G. 19 Dec. 9/1 Calling..to embark bunker coals for use on the voyage. 1888 Daily News 10 July 5/2 The exports of ‘bunker’ coal..show an improvement. |
| 1857 H. B. Farnie in J. L. Stewart Golfiana Miscellanea (1887) 142 Some bunker irons of the old make are round bottomed. 1886 A. Lang in Longman's Mag. July 332 The iron head makes it more like a bunker iron than a play club. |
| 1921 Dict. Occup. Terms (1927) §089 Bunker-man, in charge of bunkers at coke ovens where coal is stored. 1921 [see sense 3 a above]. |
| 1882 Harper's Mag. 594 The trail of smoke from that bunker steamer. |
▸
bunker-busting n. colloq. (
orig. U.S.)
(a) n. the action of penetrating and destroying a military bunker;
(b) adj. capable of penetrating and destroying a military bunker;
cf. bunker buster n. 2b.
| 1953 Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune 21 Jan. 14/2 United Nations tanks spread along the base of the ‘Iron Triangle’ early today to blast Communist positions on the central front in their six-day-long ‘*bunker busting’ campaign. 1953 Mt. Pleasant (Iowa) News 12 Feb. 1/3 About 1,400 enemy soldiers were killed by bunker-busting tanks during December and January. 1987 Fortune 6 July 46/2 Bunker-busting ammunition and grenades. 2003 Internat. Herald Tribune (Nexis) 5 Aug. 1 If the arms are ever built,..the biggest hurdle to bunker busting may be targeting. |
▸
bunker mentality n. an attitude of (excessive) defensiveness resulting from the perception of being under attack.
| 1974 Los Angeles Times 4 Dec. iv.12/7 The inertia of the *bunker mentality had taken over. 1981 J. W. Cooper & M. H. Novak Corporation 227 Is there not a danger that you are developing a bit of a bunker mentality here about the state of siege of capitalism? 2004 Independent 6 Jan. i. 17/7 Faced with competition from women the reaction has been to hunker down in a bunker mentality. |
▪ II. ˈbunker, n.2 local U.S. Short for
mossbunker.
| 1842 J. E. DeKay Zool. N.Y. iv. 260 The Mossbonker... At the east end of the island, they are called Skippangs or Bunkers. 1888 [see mossbunker]. |
▪ III. ˈbunker, v. [f. bunker n.1] 1. trans. To fill the bunkers of (a steamer) with coal or oil for its own consumption. Also with the coal or oil as object.
| 1891 Pall Mall Gaz. 19 Jan. 4/1 Many..of the great steamship companies of Liverpool were simply begging for coal to either bunker or cargo their steamers. 1893 Times 11 July 3/6 The ordinary rate of bunkering coal by manual labour. 1925 Blackw. Mag. June 836/1 She was bunkered for the twenty-nine days' run to Batavia. |
b. intr. To take in a supply of coal or oil for consumption on a voyage.
| 1893 Whitby Gaz. 3 Feb. 2/6 The foreign coaling clause in the outward coal charter bound them to bunker with the agents of the charterers. 1895 Ibid. 11 Apr. 3/2 We bunkered at Malta at four o'clock in the morning. 1925 Chambers's Jrnl. Dec. 778/2 There was some delay at Durban, where she bunkered. |
2. Golf.
pass. a. Of the ball: to be hit into a bunker. Of a player: to have one's ball in a bunker.
| 1886 H. G. Hutchinson Hints Game Golf 40 Your adversary is badly bunkered. 1891 ― Famous Golf Links v. 56 His ball lofted on Mr. Maitland's, knocked it out of the hazard, and lay bunkered in its place. 1903 Punch 22 Apr. 283 On..the Golf Links..watching the Colonel, who has been bunkered for the last ten minutes. 1955 Times 19 May 4/7 She was bunkered at the 18th. |
b. To be furnished with a bunker or bunkers.
| 1907 Daily Chron. 17 Aug. 7/2 The point of controversy..is as to how such a hole should be bunkered, or rather as to whether it should be bunkered at all. |
c. fig. (
colloq.) To be placed in a situation from which it is difficult to extricate oneself. Also, to place in such a situation.
| 1894 Baron Ribblesdale in Westm. Gaz. 6 Sept. 4/2 The Liberal peers were powerless. To use a golfing simile, they were bunkered. 1899 Geogr. Jrnl. May 474 In the long narrow ice-bound valleys which lead up from the Hindu Kush to the Pamirs..we were once, to use a familiar term, fairly bunkered. 1905 Westm. Gaz. 27 Dec. 1/3 The truth is that Mr. Balfour is bunkered by his own record. 1917 H. A. Vachell Fishpingle ix, ‘Perhaps you regard golf as a sort of epitome of life?’..‘I suppose I do.’ ‘If you found yourself {oqq}bunkered{cqq}, you would not lose heart?’ 1930 G. B. Shaw Apple Cart i. 18 Balbus. Thatll do it. He couldnt face that. Crassus. Yes: thatll bunker him. |