chunk

• IPA^(key): /t͡ʃʌŋk/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌŋk

Variant of chuck; or alternatively a diminutive of chump (“chunk; block”) +‎ *-k (diminutive suffix) (compare hunk from hump, etc.).

A chunk of silicon carbide.

chunk (plural chunks)

1. A part of something that has been separated.

   The statue broke into chunks.

   • 1910, Jack London, Burning Daylight:

     Daylight, between mouthfuls, fed chunks of ice into the tin pot, where it thawed into water. ... Daylight cut up generous chunks of bacon and dropped them in the pot of bubbling beans.

2. A representative portion of a substance, often large and irregular.

   a chunk of granite

3. (linguistics, education) A sequence of two or more words that occur in language with high frequency but are not idiomatic; a bundle or cluster.

   examples of chunks would include "in accordance with", "the results of", and "so far"

4. (computing) A discrete segment of a file, stream, etc. (especially one that represents audiovisual media); a block.
   • 1994, Paul J Perry, Multimedia developer's guide:

     The first DWORD of a chunk data in the RIFF chunk is a four character code value identifying the form type of the file.

5. (comedy) A segment of a comedian's performance.
   • 1994, Gene Perret, Successful Stand-up Comedy: Advice from a Comedy Writer, page 80:

     You begin gathering two hours of dependable comedy by developing that first three-minute chunk. When you're satisfied with it, you create another three minutes of laughs, then another three minutes.

   • 2012, Jay Sankey, Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, page 168:

     If you're gigging outdoors for the Society of Catholic Gardeners, don't close your set with your "Papa Beelzebub" chunk (no matter how life affirming you think it is!).

• chunk of change

• piece
• bit
• lump
• chuck
• hunk

• “chunk”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “chunk”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

chunk (third-person singular simple present chunks, present participle chunking, simple past and past participle chunked)

1. (transitive) To break into large pieces or chunks.
2. (transitive) To break down (language, etc.) into conceptual pieces of manageable size.
   • 2005, Yong Zhao, Research in Technology and Second Language Education:

     These results offer tentative evidence that suggests that certain components of computer-mediated instruction (in this case, access to and control over syntactically chunked, captioned video) are not necessarily beneficial for certain learners […]

3. (transitive, slang, chiefly Southern US) To throw.
4. (transitive, video games) Deal a substantial amount of damage to an opponent.

   He's chunked right before the next battle so he has to regen HP.

• dechunk
• microchunk
• rechunk

chunk (plural chunks)

1. Archaic form of chank (“type of spiral shell”).