Library / English Dictionary

CHUNK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A compact mass

Example:

a ball of mud caught him on the shoulder

Synonyms:

ball; chunk; clod; clump; glob; lump

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("chunk" is a kind of...):

agglomeration (a jumbled collection or mass)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "chunk"):

clot; coagulum (a lump of material formed from the content of a liquid)

gob (a lump of slimy stuff)

clew (a ball of yarn or cord or thread)

Derivation:

chunk (group or chunk together in a certain order or place side by side)

chunky (like or containing small sticky lumps)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A substantial amount

Example:

we won a chunk of money

Classified under:

Nouns denoting quantities and units of measure

Hypernyms ("chunk" is a kind of...):

large indefinite amount; large indefinite quantity (an indefinite quantity that is above the average in size or magnitude)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Group or chunk together in a certain order or place side by side

Synonyms:

chunk; collocate; lump

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "chunk" is one way to...):

group (arrange into a group or groups)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Derivation:

chunk (a compact mass)

chunking ((psychology) the configuration of smaller units of information into large coordinated units)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Put together indiscriminately

Example:

lump together all the applicants

Synonyms:

chunk; lump

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "chunk" is one way to...):

accumulate; amass; collect; compile; hoard; pile up; roll up (get or gather together)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something PP

Credits

 Context examples: 

Perhaps during a previous pass through the inner-solar system, or during a distant flyby of Jupiter, a chunk that we now know of as BA14 might have broken off of 252P.

(A 'Tail' of Two Comets, NASA)

He helped the process with his fingers, working loose small ice-chunks that fell rattling to the floor.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) reveals more than a dozen smaller craters near the two larger ones seen in the CTX (Telescopic Context Camera) image, possibly created by chunks of the exploding asteroid or secondary impacts of material ejected from the main craters during impact.

(NASA Mars weathercam helps find big new crater, NASA)

I weren't a-goin' to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my 'owl as the wolves, and lions, and tigers does. But, Lor' love yer 'art, now that the old 'ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an' rinsed me out with her bloomin' old teapot, and I've lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you're worth, and won't git even a growl out of me.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The odd shape has scientists thinking two bodies may be orbiting very close together or even touching – what’s known as a close or contact binary – or perhaps they’re observing a single body with a large chunk taken out of it.

(New Horizons' Next Target Just Got a Lot More Interesting, NASA)

Evidently, as they had dragged the stone up they had thrust the chunks of wood into the chink, until at last, when the opening was large enough to crawl through, they would hold it open by a billet placed lengthwise, which might very well become indented at the lower end, since the whole weight of the stone would press it down on to the edge of this other slab.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Money from the eighth house tends to come in parcels—large chunks—sporadically.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

They had eaten a pair of Perrault’s moose-hide moccasins, chunks out of the leather traces, and even two feet of lash from the end of François’s whip.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

So, he said, one takes a small chunk of blubber, thus, and thus makes it hollow.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

This asteroid — about the size of Ceres, one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System — smashed into Mars, ripped off a chunk of the northern hemisphere and left behind a legacy of metallic elements in the planet's interior.

(Ancient Asteroid Impact Explains Martian Geological Mysteries, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)