hunch
/hʌn(t)ʃ
/verb [with object]
1Raise (one’s shoulders) and bend the top of one’s body forward: Eliot hunched his shoulders against a gust of snow...
- Don't bring the leg in so far it bends or hunch your shoulders; this stresses the hamstrings and the spine and neck.
- His shoulders were hunched over and his eyes tried to stay open.
- I smile, appeased and amused, when I realize that he's actually ducking, and his broad shoulders are hunched over.
Synonyms
arch, curve, hump, bend, bow, curl, crook
crouch, huddle up, curl up, hunker down, bend, stoop, squat
North American informal scooch
1.1 [no object] Sit or stand with one’s shoulders raised and the top of one’s body bent forward: he hunched over his glass...
- I hunched up my body and put the towel over my self in protection.
- Unable to stand it, he hunched over completely, forehead touching the surface of the altar as he fought to control his cries of anguish.
- The beady eyes of the swarthy man focused on his like a snake upon its prey, and he hunched up, balling his fists, his body lean and ornery.
noun
1A feeling or guess based on intuition rather than fact: I have a hunch that someone is telling lies...
- It is only where the decision is clearly random, or based on a hunch or prejudice, that the officer's action is likely to be regarded as unreasonable.
- Based on a hunch, the lawyer asked if the widow had been born a woman.
- Drake and Emily thought it was lunchtime, based on vague hunches and guessing, but mostly on the fact that they were hungry.
Synonyms
feeling, guess, suspicion, sneaking suspicion, impression, inkling, idea, notion, fancy, presentiment, premonition, intuition
informal gut feeling, feeling in one's bones, funny feeling, sixth sense
2A humped position or thing: the hunch of his back...
- This first hunch when done correctly will put you in a butterfly position and will utilize the large latissimus muscles of the back.
Synonyms
protuberance, hump, lump, bump, knob, protrusion, prominence, projection, bulge, swelling, nodule, node, mass, growth, outgrowth, excrescence
rare tumescence, tumefaction, intumescence
3 dialect A thick piece; a hunk: a hunch of bread...
- She blew a kiss to Wolf, called him little robber, and slid a wooden platter between the bars of the cage: two steaming lumps of goat's flesh, with a hunch of bread and a flask of wine.
Origin
Late 15th century: of unknown origin. The original meaning was 'push, shove' (noun and verb), a sense retained now in Scots as a noun, and in US dialect as a verb. Sense 1 of the noun derives probably from a US sense of the verb 'nudge someone in order to draw attention to something'.