hunch

American  

[huhnch] / hʌntʃ /

verb (used with object)

• hunches,
  present (3rd person singular)
• hunched,
  past participle,  past
• hunching
  present participle

1. to thrust out or up in a hump; arch.

   to hunch one's back.

2. to shove, push, or jostle.

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verb (used without object)

• hunches,
  present (3rd person singular)
• hunched,
  past participle,  past
• hunching
  present participle

1. to thrust oneself forward jerkily; lunge forward.

2. to stand, sit, or walk in a bent posture.

noun

• hunches
  plural

1. a premonition or suspicion; guess.

   I have a hunch he'll run for reelection.

   Synonyms:

   conjecture, theory, feeling, surmise

2. a hump.

3. a push or shove.

4. a lump or thick piece.

hunch British  

/ hʌntʃ /

noun

1. an intuitive guess or feeling

2. another word for hump

3. a lump or large piece

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verb

1. to bend or draw (oneself or a part of the body) up or together

2. to sit in a hunched position

Other Word Forms

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• hunches
  plural

Participles

• hunching
  present
• hunched
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• hunch
  simple
• hunches
  simple
• have hunched
  perfect
• has hunched
  perfect
• am hunching
  progressive
• are hunching
  progressive
• is hunching
  progressive
• have been hunching
  perfect progressive
• has been hunching
  perfect progressive

Past

• hunched
  simple
• had hunched
  perfect
• was hunching
  progressive
• were hunching
  progressive
• had been hunching
  perfect progressive

Future

• will hunch
  simple
• will have hunched
  perfect
• will be hunching
  progressive
• will have been hunching
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of hunch

1590–1600; 1900–05 hunch for def. 5; apparently variant of obsolete hinch to push, shove, kick < ?

Explanation

When you pose for pictures with short friends, you hunch over so you don't tower above them — you scrunch up your shoulders, bend your knees, and try to look smaller. You can also have a hunch, which has nothing to do with scrunching. When you have a hunch about something, you think it might be true. Your dog bolts over the fence, and you have a hunch he's heading for the neighbor who feeds him pâté. Hunch is an odd word of unknown origin, which seems to have originally meant "to push or shove" — to nudge.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hunch hunches hunched hunching

Hartnett’s hunch appears to be playing out as several other commentators in the market have also decided the yields on offer in fixed-income markets are compelling.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 1, 2026

Why did you have a hunch that certain live sports were about to go mainstream, first bullfighting, then UFC?

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026

Vivienne's hunch was confirmed - she had hypermobile joints.

From BBC ● Aug. 27, 2026

In another group, the tablet lay flat on a desk set at a lower height, which encouraged participants to lean forward and hunch over.

From Science Daily ● Aug. 5, 2026

In that very first moment, when Houghton swished off the cloth, all Harrison had was a hunch, an instinctive sense that something was amiss.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

Dott's lawyer, Euan Dow, said emotions in such cases were natural, and urged jurors to not to decide the verdicts on "hunches" or "suspicions".

From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026

The government’s explanations for the arrests, wrote Judge Jennifer Thurston in Fresno, “rely on unsupported assumptions, hunches and generalizations about the relationship between a person’s apparent status as a day laborer and their immigration status.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 5, 2026

Much of the panic driving recent selloffs has been based on futuristic hunches or kneejerk assessments of the impact of new AI tools.

From Barron's ● Feb. 26, 2026

At the same time, the feats of Mr. Goddio and company—accomplished through a combination of mathematics, historical hunches and old-fashioned deep-sea diving—will keep a viewer afloat.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2025

He sits down, hunches over .his desk, and fixes his eyes on me like I’m a suspect he needs to crack.

From "All The Bright Places" by Jennifer Niven

Instead, he was hunched over in a single foldout plastic chair in an otherwise empty room, looking spent.

From Slate ● Jul. 30, 2026

Even though he had no notable operations outside the U.S., he hunched toward a microphone and said in a halting voice, “Hilcorp is fully committed and ready to go to rebuilding the infrastructure in Venezuela.”

From Salon ● Jun. 24, 2026

Hernández could only watch the ball soar, hunched over.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2026

The soundtrack is a series of bleeps and pings as fresh data is fed to dozens of men in T-shirts and hoodies hunched over joysticks and keyboards.

From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2026

The following day, after passing Mom’s “spic-and-span” room test, I sat at my desk, hunched in front of the family laptop.

From "Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence" by Sonja Thomas

Sinner took lengthy off-court breaks at the end of each set, but continued to struggle, walking gingerly, wincing and hunching over his racquet between points.

From BBC ● May 28, 2026

To challenge that, he made Clark Kent a nerd, hunching his shoulders, making him sputter with nervousness.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 7, 2026

She is unassuming, often hunching her shoulders and bowing her head modestly as she walks toward the starting blocks before a race.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2022

I tried to pick up my pace, hunching forward into the wind.

From New York Times ● Mar. 6, 2022

He was hunching up his shoulders and lowering his chin and getting ready to pull his head inside his shell.

From "Because of Winn-Dixie" by Kate DiCamillo

Related Words

• inkling
• instinct
• intuition
• premonition