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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bunting.

Strips of material used as festive decoration, especially in the colours of the national flag.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈbʌntɪŋ/UK, US
  1. Strips of material used as festive decoration, especially in the colours of the national flag.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A thin cloth of woven wool from which flags are made; it is light enough to spread in a gentle wind but resistant to fraying in a strong wind.

    countable · uncountable
  3. Flags considered as a group.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Possibly from dialect bunting (“sifting flour”), from Middle English bonten (“to sift”), hence the material used for that purpose. Possibly from Germanic bundt (“to bind or tie together”).

noun/ˈbʌntɪŋ/UK, US
  1. Any of various songbirds of the genus Emberiza, having short bills and brown or gray plumage.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English bunting, bountyng, buntynge (also as Middle English buntyle), of uncertain origin. Possibly a reference to speckled plumage, from an unrecorded Middle English *bunt (“spotted, speckled, pied”) akin to Dutch bont, Middle Low German bunt, bont, German bunt (“multi-coloured”) + -ing.

noun/ˈbʌntɪŋ/UK, US
  1. A warm, often hooded infant garment, as outerwear or sleepwear, similar to a sleeper or sleepsack; especially as baby bunting or bunting bag.

Where this word comes from

1922, apparently from Scots buntin (“plump, short and thick (esp. of children)”), itself an old term of endearment for children (1660s); the sense “plump” dates to the 1500s, and may be related to bunt (“belly of a sail”). Possibly related to butt (“(both noun and verb sense: buttocks; strike with head)”) or to bunny (“rabbit”). Compare with the nursery rhyme Bye, baby Bunting (1731), either of same origin or influenced this sense.

noun/ˈbʌntɪŋ/UK, US
  1. A pushing action.

    countable · uncountable
  2. A strong timber; a stout prop.

    countable · uncountable
  3. An old boys' game, played with sticks and a small piece of wood.

    countable · obsolete · uncountable
verb/ˈbʌntɪŋ/UK, US
  1. present participle and gerund of bunt

    form-of · gerund · participle · present
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.