thunk

Representing the dull sound of the impact of a heavy object striking another and coming to an immediate standstill, with neither object being broken by the impact.

Interjection

  1. Representing the dull sound of the impact of a heavy object striking another and coming to an immediate standstill, with neither object being broken by the impact.

Origin

Onomatopoeic.

Noun

  1. A delayed computation.
    • Not surprisingly, a thunk is more expensive to store than a single number[…]. - 2009, Bryan O'Sullivan, John Goerzen, Donald Bruce Stewart, Real World Haskell, O'Reilly, page 97:

    Coordinate Terms: closure

  2. In the Scheme programming language, a function or procedure taking no arguments.
  3. A specialized subroutine that one software module uses to execute code in another module.
    • If the provider of these DLLs has not updated the code to a 32-bit environment, you will have to switch to a new 32-bit library or write thunks between your 32-bit code and the 16-bit DLL. - 1995 October 10, PC Mag,...

Origin

Said by the inventors to be from the irregular jocular past tense of think (see Etymology 1), being coined when they realised that the type of an argument in ALGOL 60 could be predetermined at compile time (with a little compile-time “thought”).

Forms

thunks

Related

thunking

Verb computing, engineering

  1. To delay (a computation).
    • Not surprisingly, a thunk is more expensive to store than a single number, and the more complex the thunked expression, the more space it needs. For something cheap such as arithmetic, thunking an expression is more...
  2. To execute (code) by means of a thunk.
    • This efficiency is offset by the fact that some of the calls made by Win32 apps must now be thunked down to 16 bits, something that isn't necessary in Windows NT and OS/2. - 1995 May 16, Andrew Schulman, “DOS is Dead?...

Forms

thunks thunking thunked

Derived

thunker

Verb form of, humorous

  1. past participle of think
    • Who would have thunk those guys would have a problem with a little lie?
    • A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk that the skunk stunk.
    • I could think of things I never thunk before ... - 1939, “If I Only Had a Brain”, Harold Arlen (music), E.Y. Harburg (lyrics) (music), performed by Ray Bolger as the Scarecrow, from The Wizard of Oz:

Origin

By analogy with past participles ending in "-unk", such as drunk and sunk.

Derived

who would have thunk it

Verb Entry 5

  1. To strike against something, without breakage, making a "thunk" sound.
    • I was thunked on the head by his stick.

Forms

thunks thunking thunked