different between bunch vs dozen

English

Etymology

From Middle English bunche, bonche (“hump, swelling”), of uncertain origin.

Perhaps a variant of *bunge (compare dialectal bung (“heap, grape bunch”)), from Proto-Germanic *bunk?, *bunkô, *bung? (“heap, crowd”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?en??-, *b?éng??us (“thick, dense, fat”). Cognates include Saterland Frisian Bunke (“bone”), West Frisian bonke (“bone, lump, bump”), Dutch bonk (“lump, bone”), Low German Bunk (“bone”), German Bunge (“tuber”), Danish bunke (“heap, pile”), Faroese bunki (“heap, pile”); Hittite [Term?] (/panku/, “total, entire”), Tocharian B pkante (“volume, fatness”), Lithuanian búož? (“knob”), Ancient Greek ????? (pakhús, “thick”), Sanskrit ??? (bahú, “thick; much”)).

Alternatively, perhaps from a variant or diminutive of bump (compare hump/hunch, lump/lunch, etc.); or from dialectal Old French bonge (“bundle”) (compare French bongeau, bonjeau, bonjot), from West Flemish bondje, diminutive of West Flemish bond (“bundle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?b?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Noun

bunch (plural bunches)

1. A group of similar things, either growing together, or in a cluster or clump, usually fastened together.
2. (cycling) The peloton; the main group of riders formed during a race.
3. An informal body of friends.

   • “I don't mean all of your friends—only a small proportion—which, however, connects your circle with that deadly, idle, brainless bunch—the insolent chatterers at the opera, the gorged dowagers, […], the jewelled animals whose moral code is the code of the barnyard—!"

4. (US, informal) A considerable amount.

5. (informal) An unmentioned amount; a number.

6. (forestry) A group of logs tied together for skidding.
7. (geology, mining) An unusual concentration of ore in a lode or a small, discontinuous occurrence or patch of ore in the wallrock.
   • 1874, David Page, Economic Geology: Or, Geology in Its Relations to the Arts and Manufactures

     The ore may be disseminated throughout the matrix in minute particles, as gold in quartz; in parallel threads, strings, and plates, as with copper; in irregular pockets or bunches

8. (textiles) The reserve yarn on the filling bobbin to allow continuous weaving between the time of indication from the midget feeler until a new bobbin is put in the shuttle.
9. An unfinished cigar, before the wrapper leaf is added.

10. A protuberance; a hunch; a knob or lump; a hump.

Synonyms

• (group of similar things): cluster, group
• (informal body of friends): pack, group, gang, circle
• (unusual concentration of ore): ore pocket, pocket, pocket of ore, kidney, nest, nest of ore, ore bunch, bunch of ore

Derived terms

• buncha (bunch of)

Translations

Verb

bunch (third-person singular simple present bunches, present participle bunching, simple past and past participle bunched)

1. (transitive) To gather into a bunch.
2. (transitive) To gather fabric into folds.
3. (intransitive) To form a bunch.
4. (intransitive) To be gathered together in folds
5. (intransitive) To protrude or swell
   • 1728, John Woodward, An Attempt towards a Natural History of the Fossils of England

     Bunching out into a large round knob at one end.

Synonyms

• (form a bunch): cluster, group

Derived terms

• bunch up

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English dozen, dozein, doseyne, from Old French dozaine (“a group of twelve”), from doze (“twelve”) + -aine (“-ish”), from Latin duodecim (“twelve”) (from duo (“two”) + decem (“ten”)) + -ana (“-ish”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?d?z?n/
• Rhymes: -?z?n

Noun

dozen (plural dozens or dozen)

1. A set of twelve.

   Can I have a dozen eggs, please?

   I ordered two dozen doughnuts.

   There shouldn't be more than two dozen Christmas cards left to write.

   Pack the shirts in dozens, please.

2. (as plural only, always followed by of) A large, unspecified number of, comfortably estimated in small multiples of twelve, thus generally implied to be significantly more than ten or twelve, but less than perhaps one or two hundred; many.

   There must have been dozens of examples just on the first page.

   There were dozens and dozens of applicants before the job was posted.
3. (metallurgy) An old English measure of ore containing 12 hundredweight.
   • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, p. 139

     The dozen as a measure for iron ore remained almost completely constant at 12 cwts. during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Synonyms

• (followed by of: a large number of): a great deal of, a lot of, heaps of, hundreds of, loads of, lots of, many, millions of, scores of, scads of, thousands of

Antonyms

• (followed by of: a large number of): few

Abbreviations

• doz

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

Translations

See also

• gross

Anagrams

• Donze, zendo, zoned

Dutch

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -o?z?n

Noun

dozen

1. Plural form of doos

Anagrams

• zoden, zonde

Scots

Etymology

Related to doze.

Verb

dozen

1. (transitive) To stupefy.
2. (intransitive) To become stupefied.