Spunk-water
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Alternative form of stump-water (“stagnant water from a hollow in a rotting tree stump”). alt-of, alternative, uncountable
""Say — what is dead cats good for, Huck?" "Good for? Cure warts with." "No! Is that so? I know something that's better." "I bet you don't. What is it?" "Why, spunk-water." "Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water." "You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?" ... "Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame-fool way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to do any good. You got to go all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the stump and jam your hand in and say...""
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples""Say — what is dead cats good for, Huck?" "Good for? Cure warts with." "No! Is that so? I know something that's better." "I bet you don't. What is it?" "Why, spunk-water." "Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water." "You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?" ... "Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame-fool way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to do any good. You got to go all by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the stump and jam your hand in and say...""
Etymology
Regional variant of stump-water. Popularised by Mark Twain in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.