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hunch

[huhnch]

Example Sentences Origin

verb (used with object)

to thrust out or up in a hump; arch: to hunch one's back.

to shove, push, or jostle.

verb (used without object)

to thrust oneself forward jerkily; lunge forward.

to stand, sit, or walk in a bent posture.

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Hunch is one of our favorite verbs.

So is skedaddle. Does it mean:

to flee; abscond:

to run away hurriedly; flee.

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noun

a premonition or suspicion; guess: I have a hunch he'll run for reelection.

a hump.

a push or shove.

a lump or thick piece.

Origin:
1590–1600; 1900–05 for def. 5; apparently variant of obsolete hinch to push, shove, kick < ?

Can be confused: haunch, hunch.

Synonyms
5. surmise, feeling, theory, conjecture.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To hunch

Example Sentences

Braskett said he had a hunch that the new plan had borrowed from his older one.

On that hunch she initiated a guest-speaker program that immediately ignited postings and increased list subscriptions.

Comparative statistics are hard to come by, but there might be something in that hunch.

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Braskett said he had a hunch that the new plan had borrowed from his older one.

On that hunch she initiated a guest-speaker program that immediately ignited postings and increased list subscriptions.

Comparative statistics are hard to come by, but there might be something in that hunch.

School who led the team that performed a series of genetic and behavioral experiments to prove the internal-clock hunch correct.

Too often in experimental psychology the results merely serve to validate a hunch rather than prove a relationship.

Your brain does this all effortlessly and the hunch is when it serves up the end result of those computations.

If you think you know the meaning of a word, go with your hunch.

Our hunch is that philosophers are more likely to have trouble struggling with the messiness of real-world issues.

As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars are punted regularly on little more than a studio executive's hunch.

Drazen has a hunch that it could be related to environmental conditions.

She had a hunch the chromosomally abnormal eggs that plague human pregnancies were tied to our hormones.

Furthermore, his speculative hunch about the evolution of these blue butterfly turns out to have been exactly right.

Pragmatic is still undecided, but my hunch is that she will go elsewhere.

The new data, which are much more comprehensive than figures put out by governments, confirm their hunch.

Sparks leaping from the key confirmed his hunch about lightning.

My hunch is that it is missing because a clear cut distinction may not exist.

And a hunch essentially is the result of all those computations.

So even if my hunch is correct, it will be too late.

Underaged girls hunch over tiny parts in dark, stinking sweatboxes.

Otherwise, patrons rely on a battery of oscillating fans to stir the equatorial air as they hunch over their food.

Yet they have lacked the tools to turn this hunch into a concrete and predictive theory.

Only a cup of coffee sat at the table where he used to hunch.

My hunch is that's because she's a bit inexperienced yet, herself.

There is only a widely-shared hunch that they were previously too low and should now be substantially higher.

He had a hunch that he could use them to unlock domestication's molecular mysteries.

My hunch is that consciousness requires neurochemicals: some kind of drugs or chemicals, otherwise it is a calculator.

On a hunch he leased a photocopier, a film-processing machine, and a printing press for the students to use.

Some customers were ordering technology products on a hunch that shortages were on the way.

His hunch about the popularity of ghost towns was correct.

Just tell them you have a hunch you understand physics better than those know-it-all scientists and their fancy book learnin.

My hunch is that atheism is a misnomer for cerebralism.

In the twin-engine plane three men hunch over a radar screen and a computer.

My hunch is that only a journalist can be so mean, sarcastic and offensive to another journalist.

Iain had a hunch he should get up one of the trees and have a look at the beach.

Nonetheless your hunch about such a risk prompting the secret meeting looks sound to me.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

hunch (hʌntʃ)

—n
1.	an intuitive guess or feeling
2.	another word for hump
3.	a lump or large piece

—vb (usually foll by up)
4.	to bend or draw (oneself or a part of the body) up or together
5.	to sit in a hunched position

[C16: of unknown origin]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

hunch

originally (1581) a verb, "to push, thrust," of unknown origin. Meaning "raise or bend into a hump" is 1598, in hunchbacked. Perhaps a variant of bunch. Figurative sense of "hint, tip" (a "push" toward a solution or answer), first recorded 1849, led to that of "premonition, presentiment" (1904).

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"The Bishop has a skin, God knows,
Wrinkled like the foot of a goose,
(All find safety in the tomb.)
Nor can he hide in holy black
The heron's hunch upon his back,
But a birch-tree stood my Jack...."

-William Butler Yeats

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