hunch

/həntʃ/

/həntʃ/

Other forms: hunched; hunches; hunching

When you pose for pictures with short friends, you hunch over so you don't tower above them — you scrunch up your shoulders, bend your knees, and try to look smaller.

You can also have a hunch, which has nothing to do with scrunching. When you have a hunch about something, you think it might be true. Your dog bolts over the fence, and you have a hunch he's heading for the neighbor who feeds him pâté. Hunch is an odd word of unknown origin, which seems to have originally meant "to push or shove" — to nudge.

Definitions of hunch

1. noun

   an impression that something might be the case
   synonyms: intuition, suspicion

   types:

   bosom, heart

   the locus of feelings and intuitions

   type of:

   belief, feeling, impression, notion, opinion

   a vague idea in which some confidence is placed
2. verb

   round one's back by bending forward and drawing the shoulders forward
   synonyms: hump, hunch forward, hunch over

   type of:

   change posture

   undergo a change in bodily posture
3. noun

   the act of bending yourself into a humped position
   type of:

   bending

   the act of bending something