Bunker

How to spell bunker

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce bunker

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does bunker mean?

1. nounA reinforced underground shelter built to withstand attack or disaster.
2. nounA sandy hollow on a golf course that acts as a hazard.
3. nounA large container or compartment for storing coal or fuel, especially on a ship.

Bunker in a sentence

• The command staff retreated to a concrete bunker during the raid.

• His tee shot landed in the deep bunker beside the green.

• The crew shovelled coal from the ship's bunker into the furnace.

• The old wartime bunker beneath the field has been preserved as a museum.

• She practised splashing the ball out of the bunker all afternoon.

• The old steamer carried enough fuel in its bunker for the entire crossing.

Where does bunker come from?

Language of origin: Other

Bunker began life in Scots and northern English around the 1700s, where a 'bunker' or 'bunkart' meant a seat, bench, or earthen mound, possibly carried over from a Scandinavian source related to words for a chest or storage box. From the idea of a built-up mound or container, it broadened to mean a large bin for storing coal aboard ships, which is why a ship's fuel store is still called its bunker. The golfing sense, a sandy hollow set as a hazard, grew out of the same Scottish ground, since the early links courses were dotted with these natural pits. During the World Wars the military borrowed the word for a reinforced underground shelter, drawing on the sense of a dug-in, fortified hollow. The exact ancestry stays a little hazy, but the steady thread is something low, enclosed, and dug into the earth, which is handy for remembering the plain single -er ending.

How the word is built

• bunker (a single root word of Scots origin; not built from prefix or suffix)