Buncher
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A person who bunches.
"Often a buncher might come in a little early to have some work ready when rollers arrived.[…]If a buncher ran short of tobacco, the rollers got more for her."
- 2 Something that bunches or causes to bunch.; A machine that twists strands together during the manufacture of metal wire; a strander.
"Stranded copper wire and cable are made on machines known as bunchers or stranders. Conventional bunchers are used for stranding small diameter wires (34 to 10 AWG)."
- 3 Something that bunches or causes to bunch.; A circuit that causes electrons or other charged particles in a particle beam to group together.
"The pulse width can be decreased by means of a buncher, which consists of a longitudinal re-entrant cavity. The first electrons to reach the buncher are accelerated by a weaker longitudinal field than those that reach it at later times."
- 4 An illegitimate supplier of laboratory animals who obtains the animals by kidnapping pets or illegally trapping strays.
"2009, US Congress (editor), Congressional Record, V. 150, Part 6: April 20 2004 to May 4 2004, page 7574, The undercover investigation of this facility has revealed that its proprietors were aware that some of the companion animals brought to the facility were stolen, and also revealed a list of over 50 “bunchers,” individuals who obtain animals and sell them to “random source” animal dealers. Bunchers have a variety of methods for obtaining companion animals, including responding to newspaper ads offering free animals, trespassing on private property to abduct the animals from yards, and house burglaries."
- 5 A ground-based radio transmitter, configured within a system to guide aircraft to their allocated airfields.
"Each airfield had its own buncher which emitted a particular radio signal. Each plane had a radio compass so that when we flew toward the buncher, the compass would go straight up. When we flew over the buncher, it would point straight down."
Example
More examples"Often a buncher might come in a little early to have some work ready when rollers arrived.[…]If a buncher ran short of tobacco, the rollers got more for her."
Etymology
From bunch + -er.
Related phrases
More for "buncher"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.