1871. Morning Advertiser, 11 Sept. ‘Holy Abr’ham!’ mused he vauntingly, ‘shall British sailors funk, While tracts refresh their spirits, tea washes down their junk?’
1890. Pall Mall Gazette, 17 Oct. p. 2, col. 1. They wanted badly to get one steamer loaded and sent to New Zealand. The non-union men funked loading her on account of the union men.
1891. Licensed Vict. Gazette, 13 Feb. Smith’s friends thought he was funking, and shouted to Tom to go in and punch him.
5. (schoolboys’).—To move the hand forward unfairly in playing marbles; to fudge (q.v.).
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum. Funk, to use an unfair motion of the hand in plumping at taw.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab. and Lond. Poor, i., p. 144. I’ve noticed them, too, playing at ring-taw, and one of their exclamations is ‘Knuckle down fair, and no funking.’
To funk the cobbler, verb. phr. (schoolboys’).—To smoke out a schoolmate: a trick performed with asafœtida and cotton stuffed into a hollow tube or cow’s horn; the cotton being lighted, the smoke is blown through the keyhole.
1698–1700. Ward, London Spy, Pt. IX., p. 197. We smoak’d the Beans almost as bad as unlucky schoolboys us’d to do the coblers, till they sneak’d off one by one, and left behind ’em more agreeable Company.
1785. Grose, Dict. of the Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
See also Peter Funk.