hunchnoun/hʌnt͡ʃ/

• 1

  A hump; a protuberance.

• 2

  A stooped or curled posture; a slouch.

  • The old man walked with a hunch.
• 3

  A theory, idea, or guess; an intuitive impression that something will happen.

  • I have a hunch they'll find a way to solve the problem.
  • I've learned to trust my hunches.
• 4

  A hunk; a lump; a thick piece.

  • a hunch of bread
  • "The greedy little bastards! They had a 'unch of bread each when I 'ad my dinner."
• 5

  A push or thrust, as with the elbow.

hunchverb/hʌnt͡ʃ/

• 1

  To bend the top of one's body forward while raising one's shoulders.

  • Don't hunch over your computer if you want to avoid neck problems.
  • Sandy, you will never get anywhere by hunching over your putter, hold your shoulders back and bend from the waist.
• 2

  To raise (one's shoulders) (while lowering one's head or bending the top of one's body forward); to curve (one's body) forward (sometimes followed by up).

  • They stood outside the door hunching themselves against the rain and puffing on their cigarettes.
  • He hunched up his shoulders and stared down at the ground.
• 3

  To walk (somewhere) while hunching one's shoulders.

  • […] the figure hunched up the road.
  • […] once we had hunched in out of the sun and slunk through a cold pork-and-beans-on-bread lunch […] my brother and I found a desert creek nearby and heaved rocks at each other to cool off.
• 4

  To thrust a hump or protuberance out of (something); to crook, as the back.

  • […] thou art all one errour; soul and body. The first young tryal of some unskill’d Pow’r; Rude in the making Art, and Ape of Jove. Thy crooked mind within hunch’d out thy back; And wander’d in thy limbs:
• 5

  To push or jostle with the elbow; to push or thrust against (someone).

  • After this, we saw a great Troop of Women upon the High-way to Hell, with their Bags; and their fellows, at their Heels, ever, and anon, hunching, and Justling one Another.
  • Hickman, a great over-grown, lank-hair’d, chubby boy, who would be hunch’d and punch’d by every-body; and go home, with his finger in his eye, and tell his mother.
• 6

  To have a hunch, or make an intuitive guess.

  • People who are instinctive hunchers go through some such process at every decision-making point of their lives. It is likely that children often make decisions and discern truths by hunching.