1690. B. E., New Dict. of the Canting Crew. What a funk here is! What a thick smoke. Smoak of Tobacco is here! Ibid. Here’s a damn’d funk, here’s a great stink.
2. (vulgar).—A state of fear; trepidation, nervousness, or cowardice; a stew (q.v.). Generally, with an intensitive, e.g., a ‘mortal,’ ‘awful,’ ‘bloody,’ ‘blue,’ or ‘pissing’ funk. Fr., la guenette; le flubart (thieves’); la frousse (also = diarrhœa). It., filo = thread.
1796. Wolcott, Pindarina, p. 59. If they find no brandy to get drunk, Their souls are in a miserable funk.
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 21. Up he rose in a funk.
1821. P. Egan, Tom and Jerry (1890), p. 91. I was in a complete funk.
1837. Barham, I. L., Look at the Clock, ed. 1862, p. 39. Pryce, usually brimful of valour when drunk, Now experienced what schoolboys denominate funk.
1848. Ruxton, Life in the Far West, p. 9. The mules, which was a-snorting with funk and running before the Injuns … followed her right into the corral, and thar they was safe.
1850. Literary World (New York), 30 Nov. So my friend’s fault is timidity.… I grant, then, that the funk is sublime, which is a true and friendly admission.
1856. Thomas Hughes, Tom Brown’s School-days, p. 196. If I was going to be flogged next minute, I should be in a blue funk.
1859. Whitty, Political Portraits, p. 30. Lord Clarendon did not get through the business without these failures, which result from the intellectual process termed freely funk.