Kerplunk
intj, noun, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A sound of someone or something falling and landing heavily. informal
"If my life were a Saturday-morning cartoon, you would have heard a loud kerplunk as my stomach dropped. My poor starving stomach. It was under such stress already, and now this."
- 2 A disappointment which comes as a surprise. US, dated, figuratively, slang
- 1 To make the sound of falling and landing heavily; to thud. informal, intransitive
- 1 Used to indicate a thudding sound.
"We flipped to see who'd go first and I won, which meant Claudia had to dial. I called the number out loud for her, and inside me my heart was suddenly going "kerplunk, kerplunk, kerplunk," heavy as an elephant's feet."
Example
More examples"If my life were a Saturday-morning cartoon, you would have heard a loud kerplunk as my stomach dropped. My poor starving stomach. It was under such stress already, and now this."
Etymology
From ker- (prefix forming onomatopoeias imitating the effect or sound of a heavy object falling) + plunk (“dull thud of something landing on a surface”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.