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hunch
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
hunch
I.noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
hunch your shoulders (=raise your shoulders and bend them forwards slightly)
▪ He hunched his shoulders against the rain.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ "How did you know the answer?" "I just had a hunch about it."
▪ I have a hunch that Jodie may be planning a surprise party.
▪ It's just a hunch, but it's possible the murderer may have been a woman.
▪ My hunch that he was lying turned out to be correct.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But it is always nice to have your hunches backed up.
▪ His hunch had been right after all.
▪ I bought a kayak on a hunch.
▪ I didn't come up with a theory immediately, though I had hunches which were difficult to put into words.
▪ In 1964 he had been prepared to back his hunches.
▪ My hunch, though, is that it will.
▪ The doctors investigated their hunch by having 142 randomly selected patients fill out a questionnaire after they re-covered from their anesthesia.
II.verb
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
down
▪ Then the driver hunched down with a magazine, the door buzzed open and Maxim went in.
▪ Twist some dials, and the machine trembles, two robot arms pick up soldering irons and hunch down on him.
▪ Billy Tolboys pulled up the collar of his ancient leather overcoat and hunched down even deeper into the motorcycle sidecar.
▪ He stood up sleek and tall, hunched down, and launched himself for a closer look-see.
▪ But Silk was already inside, hunched down low, Uzi searching for targets.
forward
▪ Emily hunched forward over her handlebars, tense and determined.
▪ Pat took off her jacket and hunched forward.
▪ Hammond was looking down, his shoulders hunched forward, as if he knew already what was in the second file.
▪ They left off playing, let go hands and hunched forward as they left the alley and ent red the street.
▪ A loping gait, he thought, with something tired in the way she hunched forward.
over
▪ Goggled officials hunched over consoles around tiers of cantilevered wrought-iron galleries, listening to data, whispering orders.
▪ Some extend their billed baseball caps or hunch over and have the players sign their names on the back of their shirts.
▪ He was hunched over the car.
▪ The way they walk around hunched over.
▪ Then as if the whole world had hunched over to block out the sun, the sky becomes as black as coal.
▪ Although 70 years old and permanently hunched over from osteoporosis, she was still a compact bundle of energy.
▪ He could picture him hunched over his desk, busily writing ... for ever writing.
▪ Roy hunches over and stares at the floor.
up
▪ I sit there for quite a bit, hunched up on the pavement.
▪ My shoulders hunched up, my hands dug down into my pockets, each gesture made was grand as the movies.
▪ The figure was hunched up on the seat, its head on the table, apparently almost sleeping.
▪ On the way down I see a red squirrel sitting hunched up and immobile, on a maple tree.
▪ The maids found her the next morning hunched up in the laundry cupboard on the landing, dozing lightly.
▪ Its body is hunched up in a strange way, with its wings drooped, its feathers ruffled and its head lowered.
▪ He stared down at the body hunched up in the bath.
▪ He sat with his huge shoulders hunched up.
■ NOUN
shoulder
▪ She could feel him hesitating, shoulders hunching with the sense of something wrong.
▪ His chin hung farther down on his chest as his shoulders hunched closer together.
▪ Fenn froze, shoulders hunched, until the reverberations died away.
▪ Her shoulders are hunched, her head down as she lopes across the court.
▪ She looked at me slouching into my chair, shoulders hunched into my body.
▪ Alan was concentrating too, his shoulders hunched, his head moving slightly as he read.
▪ My shoulders hunched up, my hands dug down into my pockets, each gesture made was grand as the movies.
■ VERB
sit
▪ The hawks and falcons sat hunched on their perches, lost in some inner world of stoop and updraught.
▪ So we sat hunched at our desks, blackening out the story and accompanying pictures.
▪ He sat hunched by the stern cleat, knife ready to cut the Zodiac free.
▪ The room is quiet, as every child sits hunched over a piece of writing.
▪ Employees sit hunched over their screens, or chat by the coffee machine.
▪ Now he sits hunched over on the couch, wearing a roomy black overcoat with a pack of Marlboros in one pocket.
▪ The coachman sat hunched over the reins, waiting.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ His chin hung farther down on his chest as his shoulders hunched closer together.
▪ Seeing Michael Ryan smiling at them, they seemed to crowd together, hunching in their seats.
▪ The impulse to hit is curbed by hunching the shoulders.
▪ The molten light from the stove mottled the ceiling, dark furniture hunched away from it along the walls.
▪ They left off playing, let go hands and hunched forward as they left the alley and ent red the street.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hunch

Hunch \Hunch\, n. [Perh. akin to huckle; cf. hump, hunch, bunch, hunk.]

  1. A hump; a protuberance.

  2. A lump; a thick piece; as, a hunch of bread.

  3. A push or thrust, as with the elbow.

  4. A strong, intuitive impression that something will happen; -- said to be from the gambler's superstition that it brings luck to touch the hump of a hunchback. [Colloq. or Slang] ``Get a hunch, bet a bunch.''

    Syn: presentiment, premonition. [Webster 1913 Suppl. +PJC]

Hunch

Hunch \Hunch\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Hunched; p. pr. & vb. n. Hunching.]

  1. To push or jostle with the elbow; to push or thrust suddenly.

  2. To thrust out a hump or protuberance; to crook, as the back.
    --Dryden.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
hunch

originally (c.1500) a verb, "to push, thrust," of unknown origin. Meaning "raise or bend into a hump" is 1670s. Perhaps a variant of bunch. The noun is attested from 1620s, originally "a push, thrust." Figurative sense of "hint, tip" (a "push" toward a solution or answer), first recorded 1849, led to that of "premonition, presentiment" (1904).

Wiktionary
hunch

n. 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. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To slouch, stoop, curl, or lean. 2 To push or jostle with the elbow; to push or thrust suddenly. 3 To thrust out a hump or protuberance; to crook, as the back.

Related phrases:
WordNet
hunch

  1. n. an impression that something might be the case; "he had an intuition that something had gone wrong" [syn: intuition, suspicion]

  2. the act of bending yourself up together

hunch

v. arch one's back [syn: hump, hunch forward, hunch over]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Hunch

Hunch may refer to:

  • Hunch (website), a collective intelligence decision making system
  • Hunch, an intuitive reckoning
  • Hunch, a forward bend in one's body, such as that from a crushed vertebra
  • Hunch, a parody of Derryn Hinch played by Steve Vizard on Australian television show Fast Forward
  • Hunch, a dance attributed to Hasil Adkins
  • The Hunch Backs, a mountain in Hong Kong

  • , a United States Navy patrol boat in commission from 1917 to 1918

Hunch (website)

Hunch was a website designed as a collective intelligence decision-making system ("decision engine") that used decision trees to make decisions based on users' interest. Hunch was launched publicly in June 2009. Hunch was headquartered in New York City. The site was apparently closed down in March 2014.

Usage examples of "hunch".

The evening air had cooled considerably, and Ace sat hunched close to the campfire.

Third Century of the Tenth Cohort, Gnaeus, Clodius Afer, hunching along the rampart.

Then the memory passed and Alman, weak from privations and older than his years, hunched in on himself in a series of racking coughs.

Then the memory passed and Alman, weak from privations and older than his years, hunched in on himself in a series of wracking coughs.

When a bold hunch leads them from a wild murder investigation to a red-hot love affair, Amaryllis is shocked, Lucas is delighted-- and no power on heaven, earth or St.

She knew that to the men and women hunched over the table, debating with Aum, she was more or less invisible.

Merc noticed the impression that Mada had made on Ave, and he hunched his back even more as he bent down to speak.

Marilee said defensively, hunching her shoulders as she stirred with much more aggression than necessary, making a few splatters, while Axel choked dramatically.

But his hunch was that, if an ego-field were ever going to inhabit the Bauble, it would have done so before now.

Hunched in the dirt in a corner of the cook dugout, more tortured by the food smells than by the ropes cutting his ankles and wrists, Berel Jastrow takes one look at her face and decides to gamble.

The Gopher borer sat hunched down on the surface outside the dome, and the dozers were still clearing the huge masses of pulverized rock the Gopher had heaved back toward the surface.

There were small round tables, low backless stools for jazz buffs to sit on with knees hunched, and a bossa nova trio consisting of guitar, bass, and drums.

Trigger, playing hunches only, was miles wide in his basic belief that Brye had not been in Vreekill Castle at all.

My hunch is that our space friends determined the position of the cache just recently.

Tom Cadge had hunched down into his blankets, shivering, his head completely covered, like a child trying to hide from the monsters in the dark.