Etymograph

English

bunch

Bunch comes from Middle English bunche ‘hump, swelling’, whose origin is uncertain.

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500bunche1‘hump, swelling’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1611bunch1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English bunch
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1611, The Holy Bible, London: […] Robert Barker: “They will carry[…]their treasures upon the bunches of camels.”.

Lineage

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500buncheWiktionary, English bunch‘hump, swelling’
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1611bunchWiktionary, English bunch. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1611, The Holy Bible, London: […] Robert Barker: “They will carry[…]their treasures upon the bunches of camels.”

The story

Perhaps a variant of *bunge (compare dialectal bung (‘heap, grape bunch’)), from Proto-Germanic *bunkō, *bunkô, *bungǭ (‘heap, crowd’), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ-, *bʰénǵʰus (‘thick, dense, fat’).

Full etymology on Wiktionary

Linked words

through Proto-Indo-European *bʰenǵʰ- ‘thick’

bunion, 2 more

Today it means

noun A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “bunch”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Middle English bunche / bunch

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