hunch

Meaning

Noun

1. A hump; a protuberance.
2. A stooped or curled posture; a slouch.
3. A theory, idea, or guess; an intuitive impression that something will happen.
4. A hunk; a lump; a thick piece.
5. A push or thrust, as with the elbow.

Verb

1. To bend the top of one's body forward while raising one's shoulders.
2. To raise (one's shoulders) (while lowering one's head or bending the top of one's body forward); to curve (one's body) forward (sometimes followed by up).
3. To walk (somewhere) while hunching one's shoulders.
4. To thrust a hump or protuberance out of (something); to crook, as the back.
5. To push or jostle with the elbow; to push or thrust against (someone).
6. (colloquial) To have a hunch, or make an intuitive guess.

Synonyms

hump

intuition

foreboding

crouch

premonition

suspicion

presentiment

curve

stoop

bend

lower

hunch over

jostle

excrescence

hunk

push

foreshadowing

arch

tumour

curl up

hunch forward

lump

bulk

mass

misgiving

neoplasm

node

nodule

nose

👃

nub

prominence

propulsion

protuberance

shove

shrivel

sixth sense

slab

spur

squat

squinch

swelling

thought

💭

thrust

tuberosity

tumor

volume

actuation

motivation

boost

bulge

bump

bunch

chunk

clump

cower

duck

🦆

furtherance

gobbet

growth

guess

hindquarters

huddle

humpback

idea

💡

impetus

impulse

impulsion

insight

instinct

knob

Pronounced as (IPA)

/hʌnt͡ʃ/

Etymology

Assibilated variant of hunk, of uncertain origin.
Alternatively, a derivative of hump, via an earlier Middle English *hunche, *humpchin, from *hump + -chin, -chen (diminutive suffix), equivalent to hump + -kin. In the sense of an intuitive impression, said to be from the old gambling superstition that it brings luck to touch the hump of a hunchback.