The Public School Word-book / A conribution to to a historical glossary of words phrases and turns of expression obsolete and in current use peculiar to our great public schools together with some that have been or are modish at the universities

by John Stephen Farmer

1891. Wrench, Winchester Word-Book, s.v. Functure. The word looks like fulctura, an earlier form of fulture, meaning a prop or stay, with phonetic change of l into n.

Funking-Monday, subs. (Christ’s Hospital).—See quot.

1887. The Blue, Nov. Yet it is not from ignorance of vulgar slang that the author’s elegance springs, for he unbends once so far as to say that the Monday after the holidays is called “FUNKING-MONDAY.”

Funking-room, subs. (medical).—The room at the Royal College of Surgeons where students collect on the last evening of their final during the addition of their marks, and whence each is summoned by an official announcing failure or success.

1841. Punch, i. p. 225, col. 2. On the top of a staircase he enters a room, wherein the partners of his misery are collected. It is a long, narrow apartment, commonly known as the FUNKING-ROOM.

Funkster, subs. (Winchester).—A coward.

Furk. See Firk.

Gag, subs. 1. (Christ’s Hospital).—See quot. Gag-eater = a term of reproach.

1813. Lamb, Christ’s Hospital, in Works, p. 324 (ed. 1852). L. has recorded the repugnance of the school to GAGS, or the fat of fresh beef boiled; and sets it down to some superstition.... A GAG-EATER in our time was equivalent to a ghoul, ... and held in equal estimation.