bunt
/bʌnt/noun, verb
bunt is spelled B-U-N-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 36,176th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, bunt means “The middle part, cavity, or belly of a sail; the part of a furled sail which is at the center of the yard” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of bunt is bunts.
How many letters and syllables are in bunt?
| Letters | 4: B-U-N-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 36,176th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is bunt?
Bunt appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 36,176th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce bunt?
- /bʌnt/
- /bʊnt/
Bunt has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-bunt.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of bunt
- bunts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- bunting participle, present
- bunted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does bunt mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The middle part, cavity, or belly of a sail; the part of a furled sail which is at the center of the yard.
The bunt of the sail was green.
- 2
A push or shove; a butt.
- 3
A ball that has been intentionally hit softly so as to be difficult to field, sometimes with a hands-spread batting stance or with a close-hand, choked-up hand position. No swinging action is involved.
The bunt was fielded cleanly.
- 4
The act of bunting.
The manager will likely call for a bunt here.
- 5
The second half of an outside loop, from level flight to inverted flight.
- 6
Any large pilot-commanded pitch-down motion of an aircraft, often producing negative G-forces and resulting in a large negative change in flightpath angle.
- 7
A fungus (Ustilago foetida) affecting the ear of cereals, filling the grains with a foetid dust.
verb
- 1
To push with the horns; to butt.
- 2
To spring or rear up.
- 3
To intentionally hit softly with a hands-spread batting stance.
Jones bunted the ball.
- 4
To intentionally hit a ball softly with a hands-spread batting stance.
Jones bunted.
- 5
To perform (the second half of) an outside loop.
We had heard that there was an elite group of three or four pilots in Jodhpur called the “Bunt Club”, who had successfully bunted their aircraft–that is, carried out the second half of an outside loop. In the Bunt, you pushed the nose down,
- 6
To swell out.
The sail bunts.
- 7
rareTo headbutt affectionately.
For quotations using this term, see Citations:bunt.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Bunt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense baseball: ball intentionally hit softly:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does bunt come from?
Unknown. Perhaps a nasalised variant of butt.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).