bung

plural bungs

1. A stopper, alternative to a cork, often made of rubber, used to prevent fluid passing through the neck of a bottle, vat, a hole in a vessel etc.

   With the heavy seas trying to broach the boat they baled — and eventually found someone had forgotten to put the bung in.

   1996, Dudley Pope, Life in Nelson's Navy

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   Andre pulled the bung from the top of a barrel, applied a glass tube with a suction device, and withdrew a pale, almost greenish liquid.

   2008, Christine Carroll, The Senator's Daughter

2. The cecum or anus, especially of livestock but sometimes (slang) of humans.

   Chitterlings are comprised of the hog's large intestine and may include the bung.

   1969, Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications for Edible By-products, page 9

3. slangA bribe.

   It is almost a year since Luton Town's manager, Mike Newell, decided that whistle-blowing was no longer the preserve of referees and went public about illegal bungs.

   2006 December 21, Leader, “Poorly tackled”, in the Guardian

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   Is this a case of mere ‘bungs’ (a form of bribery) at play in the book trade, a success bought with massive advertising effort and distribution through the author’s drugstore chain?

   2021 April 26, Corinna Norrick-Rühl, Christian Alexander Peter, Lena Schüler, ““Pay to Play” in the German Book Trade?”, in Publishing Research Quarterly, volume 37, →DOI, pages 241–254

4. The orifice in the bilge of a cask through which it is filled; bung-hole.
5. obsoleteslangA sharper or pickpocket.

   You filthy bung, away.

   c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iv]

6. UKobsoleteslangThe landlord of a public house.

   "Well, sir, I haven't got one," said the landlord, "or you should have it directly." […] "Could you oblige me with such a thing as a postage stamp?" "No," said the Bung; "don't keep 'em!"

   1878, Fun, volumes 27-28, page 11

present singular third person bungs · participle present bunging · participle past bunged · past bunged

1. transitiveTo plug, as with a bung.

   Put the wine into a cask, cover up the bung-hole to keep out the dust, and when the hissing sound ceases, bung the hole closely, and leave the wine untouched for twelve months.

   2006, A. G. Payne, Cassell's Shilling Cookery

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   It has not yet been ascertained, which is the precise time when it becomes indispensable to bung the cider. The best, I believe, that can be done, is to seize the critical moment which precedes the formation of a pellicle on the surface...

   1810, Agricultural Surveys: Worcester (1810)

2. AustraliaUKinformaltransitiveTo put, throw, or place something without care; to chuck.

   And to sustain us while we watch or read, we go to the freezer, take out a frozen pizza, bung it in the microwave and make do.

   2004, Bob Ashley, Food and cultural studies

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   "Doctors are queer birds. This one didn't mind a bit dabbling about that old thing to find out what had happened inside her. He's fixed her up for tonight and is coming tomorrow to put her leg in plaster, or something. He wanted to bung her off to a hospital, but I persuaded him not to."

   1950, Norman Lindsay, Dust or Polish?, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 31

   Of course, the weird thing is that he found Marianne Faithfull at the same time and bunged it onto her, and it was a fucking hit, so already we're songwriters.

   1996, Stanley Booth, quoting Keith Richards, Keith, St. Martin's Publishing Group, →ISBN

3. transitiveTo batter, bruise; to cause to bulge or swell.

   [T]he Chicken had been tapped, and bunged, and had received pepper, and had been made groggy, and had come up piping, and had endured a complication of similar strange inconveniences, until he had been gone into and finished.

   1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC

4. transitiveTo pass a bribe to (someone).

1. AustraliaNew Zealandnot comparableslangBroken, not in working order; damaged; injured.

   It′s the signal box, the main switchboard, that′s gone bung!

   1997, Lin Van Hek, The Ballad of Siddy Church, page 219

   4 more examples

   […] My right eye has gone bung, and my left one is pretty dicky.

   1922, Apsley Cherry-Garrard, Karen Oslund (introduction), The Worst Journey in the World, 2004, page 365, The evening we reached the glacier Bowers wrote

   ‘Morning Mrs. Weissnicht. I′ve just heard as how your washing-machine′s gone bung.’

   1953, Eric Linklater, A Year of Space, page 206

   Happened to me the other day, I was there minding my own business when a trolley hit my bung foot at about Warp Nine speed.

   1995, Paul Vautin, Turn It Up!, Sydney: Pan Macmillan Australia, page 140

   Henry had said, “Half a million bloomin′ acres. A quarter of a million blanky sheep shorn a year, and they can′t keep on two blokes. It′s not because wer′e union, mate. It′s because we′re newchums. Something′s gone bung with this country.”

   2006, Pip Wilson, Faces in the Street: Louisa and Henry Lawson and the Castlereagh Street Push, page 9

plural bungs · alternative bong · alternative bonge · alternative boung · alternative bounge

1. UKobsoletethieves' cantA purse.

   Oft thsi crew of mates met together, and said there was no hope of nipping the boung because he held open his gowne so wide, and walked in such an open place.

   1592, Robert Green, The Thirde & Last Part of Conny-catching, Bodleian Library (Malone 575), London: John Lane. Reprinted in 1923, Harrison, G. B. (ed.), The Bodley Head Quartos III, Plainstow, Great Britain: Curwen Press, p. 22

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   Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.

   1611, Thomas Middleton, “The Roaring Girl”, in Arthur Henry Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton, volume 4, published 1885, act 5, scene 1, pages 128–129