bunker
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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6 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "bunker", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "bunker" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "bunker" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
bunker is aEnglishnoun. It means: A hardened shelter, often partly buried or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks. Pronounced /ˈbʌŋ.kə/. Often confused with buyer and burke.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | bunker |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈbʌŋ.kə/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #11,660 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bunker is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbʌŋ.kə/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,660 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 9 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for bunker, with forms such as "bbunker", "bnuker", and "bukner". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "buyer", "burke", "bunks", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: The origin of the noun is uncertain; the earliest sense is sense 6.1 (“box or chest, the lid of which serves as a seat”), from Scots bunker (“bench; pew; window-seat; sand pit (especially in golf); coal receptacle; sleeping berth, bunk”), from Early Scots b… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is bunker, spelled B-U-N-K-E-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A hardened shelter, often partly buried or fully underground, designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks.
- 2A compartment for storing coal for the ship's boilers; or a tank for storing fuel oil for the ship's engines.
- 3The coal compartment on a tank engine; it can also refer to that on a tender engine.
- 4Ellipsis of bunker oil (usually plural).
- 5A hazard on a golf course consisting of a sand-filled hollow.
- 6An obstacle used to block an opposing player's view and field of fire.
- 7A large bin or container for storing coal, often built outdoors in the yard of a house.
- 8A sort of box or chest, as in a window, the lid of which serves as a seat.
- 9A kitchen worktop.
Etymology
The origin of the noun is uncertain; the earliest sense is sense 6.1 (“box or chest, the lid of which serves as a seat”), from Scots bunker (“bench; pew; window-seat; sand pit (especially in golf); coal receptacle; sleeping berth, bunk”), from Early Scots bunker, bunkur, bonker (“a chest or box, often serving as a seat”), probably from Old Norse bunki (“a heap”) (probably whence bunk (“sleeping berth in a ship, train, etc.”)), from Proto-Germanic *bunkô (“a heap, pile; a bump, lump, a crowd”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ- (“thick”) or *bʰeg- (“to billow, swell; to arch, bend, curve (?)”). Compare Middle Low German bunge (“drum, container”), Middle High German bunge (“drum”). Sense 1 (“hardened shelter designed to protect the inhabitants from falling bombs or other attacks”) was derived from German Bunker during World War II, which was itself from bunker (“large bin or container for storing coal”) (sense 5). The verb is derived from the noun.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bbunker,bnuker,bukner,bunekr,bunkerr,bunkker,bunkre,bunnker,ubnker
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for bunker
Misspelling Variants of "bunker"
Frequency rank: #11,660 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter B in our English index: