Bunco
//ˈbʌŋkəʊ// noun, verb, slang
noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A swindle or confidence trick. US, countable, slang, uncountable
- 2 a swindle in which you cheat at gambling or persuade a person to buy worthless property wordnet
- 3 A parlour game played in teams with three dice, originating in England but popular among suburban women in the United States at the beginning of the 21st century. uncountable
- 4 A brigand. countable, uncountable
"When they fall into the hands of the Buncoes, they sometimes do; at others, they are merely robbed or held to ransom for a time and then released again."
Verb
- 1 To swindle (someone). US, intransitive, slang, transitive
"They felt very sorry (so they said) for the poor old eleventh company having been buncoed into taking such an awful pack of useless recruits."
- 2 deprive of by deceit wordnet
Example
More examples"When they fall into the hands of the Buncoes, they sometimes do; at others, they are merely robbed or held to ransom for a time and then released again."
Etymology
Reportedly from Spanish banca, a card game.
Related phrases
More for "bunco"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.