Dictionary

waterfunk en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *wed- Proto-Indo-European *-r̥ Proto-Indo-European *wódr̥ Proto-Germanic *watōr Proto-West Germanic *watar Old English wæter Middle English water English water English funk English waterfunk Compound of water + funk (“a coward”).

Meanings

1. (UK, colloquial, dated) Someone who is afraid to go into water; a hydrophobe.
   • We remember in ancient times, when William IV. was king, on a magnificent sheet of brownish water, gracefully named Duck Puddle, a select little coterie of waterfunks (the title sufficiently explains itself—Etonicè frousts) would be unjustifiably but carefully placed on two old punts, or on a punt and an unhinged door, massive as that of Gaza, and on those treacherous rafts committed like Danae to the mercy of the waves. 1861 September 7, “Tale of the Tub”, in The Living Age, volume XIV (third series), number 901, Boston, M.A.: Littell, Son, & Co., →OCLC, page 613, column 1:
   • "'Twasn't fair—remindin' one of bein' a water-funk. My first term, too. Heaps of chaps are—when they can't swim." 1898 December, Rudyard Kipling, “Stalky”, in The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, volume IX, London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited […], →OCLC, page 190, column 2:
   • 'Very well. I'm no waterfunk,' and as though she feared that her courage might ooze away, she rose and drew the curtain that divided the hut from the door to the back. 'Who wants to bathe?' 1933 December, R[alph] H[ale] Mottram, “A Trip to the Seaside. III. The Beach”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume 148, number 888, London: John Murray, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 647:
   • Normally, I am a grade A waterfunk and the initial process of getting wet is agony but this was sheer bliss. 1999, Henry Blofeld, It's Just Not Cricket! Henry Blofeld's Cricket Year, London: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 196:

Forms