1827. ‘Advice to Tommy,’ Every Night Book (by the author of ‘The
Cigar’). Do not go out of your depth, unless you have available
assistance at hand, in case you should funk.
1856. Hughes, Tom Brown’s School Days, ii., p. 5. He’s funking; go
in Williams!
1857. Moncrieff, The Bashful Man, ii., 4. Ah! Gyp, hope I sha’n’t
get plucked; funk confoundedly: no matter, I must put a bold face
on it.
1857. Hood, Pen and Pencil Pictures, p. 144. I have seen him out
with the governor’s hounds: he funked at the first hedge, and I
never saw him again!
1863. Reade, Hard Cash, ii., p. 135. I told him I hadn’t a notion
of what he meant! ‘O yes I did,’ he said, ‘Captain Dodd’s fourteen
thousand pounds! It had passed through my hands.’ Then I began to
funk again at his knowing that.... I was flustered, ye see.
1865. H. Kingsley, The Hillyars and the Burtons, ch. xxxiii. The
sound of the table falling was the signal for a rush of four men
from the inner room, who had to use a vulgar expression, funked
following the valiant scoundrel Sykes, but who now tried to make
their escape, and found themselves hand to hand with the policemen.
1871. Morning Advertiser, 11 Sept. ‘Holy Abr’ham!’ mused he
vauntingly, ‘shall British sailors funk, While tracts refresh their
spirits, tea washes down their junk?’
1890. Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Oct. p. 2, col. 1. They wanted badly to
get one steamer loaded and sent to New Zealand. The non-union men
funked loading her on account of the union men.
1891. Licensed Vict. Gazette, 13 Feb. Smith’s friends thought he
was funking, and shouted to Tom to go in and punch him.
5. (schoolboys’).—To move the hand forward unfairly in playing marbles;
to fudge (q.v.).
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Funk, to use an unfair motion of the
hand in plumping at taw.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., p. 144. I’ve
noticed them, too, playing at ring-taw, and one of their
exclamations is ‘Knuckle down fair, and no funking.’
To funk the cobbler, verb. phr. (schoolboys’).—To smoke out a
schoolmate: a trick performed with asafœtida and cotton stuffed into a
hollow tube or cow’s horn; the cotton being lighted, the smoke is blown
through the keyhole.
1698–1700. Ward, London Spy, Pt. IX., p. 197. We smoak’d the Beans
almost as bad as unlucky schoolboys us’d to do the coblers, till
they sneak’d off one by one, and left behind ’em more agreeable
Company.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
See also Peter Funk.
Funker, subs. (old).—1. A pipe; a cigar; a fire. [From funk = to smoke
+ er.]