waterfunk

See also: water-funk and water funk

English

Alternative forms

• water-funk, water funk

Etymology

Etymology tree

Proto-Indo-European *wed-

Proto-Indo-European *-r̥

Proto-Indo-European *wódr̥

Proto-Germanic *watōr

Proto-West Germanic *watar

Old English wæter

Middle English water

English water

English funk

English waterfunk

Compound of water +‎ funk (“a coward”).

Noun

waterfunk (plural waterfunks)

1. (British, colloquial, dated) Someone who is afraid to go into water; a hydrophobe.
   • 1861 September 7, “Tale of the Tub”, in The Living Age, volume XIV (third series), number 901, Boston, M.A.: Littell, Son, & Co., →OCLC, page 613, column 1:

     We remember in ancient times, when William IV. was king, on a magnificent sheet of brownish water, gracefully named Duck Puddle, a select little coterie of waterfunks (the title sufficiently explains itself—Etonicè frousts) would be unjustifiably but carefully placed on two old punts, or on a punt and an unhinged door, massive as that of Gaza, and on those treacherous rafts committed like Danae to the mercy of the waves.

   • 1898 December, Rudyard Kipling, “Stalky”, in The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, volume IX, London: Ward, Lock & Co., Limited […], →OCLC, page 190, column 2:

     "'Twasn't fair—remindin' one of bein' a water-funk. My first term, too. Heaps of chaps are—when they can't swim."

   • 1933 December, R[alph] H[ale] Mottram, “A Trip to the Seaside. III. The Beach”, in The Cornhill Magazine, volume 148, number 888, London: John Murray, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 647:

     'Very well. I'm no waterfunk,' and as though she feared that her courage might ooze away, she rose and drew the curtain that divided the hut from the door to the back. 'Who wants to bathe?'

   • 1999, Henry Blofeld, It's Just Not Cricket! Henry Blofeld's Cricket Year, London: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 196:

     Normally, I am a grade A waterfunk and the initial process of getting wet is agony but this was sheer bliss.

Further reading

• “water funk”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “water-funk, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.