Waterfunk

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Someone who is afraid to go into water; a hydrophobe. British, colloquial, dated

    "We remember in ancient times, when William IV. was king, on a magnificent sheet of brownish water, gracefully named Duck Puddle, a select little coterie of waterfunks (the title sufficiently explains itself—Etonicè frousts) would be unjustifiably but carefully placed on two old punts, or on a punt and an unhinged door, massive as that of Gaza, and on those treacherous rafts committed like Danae to the mercy of the waves."

Example

More examples

"We remember in ancient times, when William IV. was king, on a magnificent sheet of brownish water, gracefully named Duck Puddle, a select little coterie of waterfunks (the title sufficiently explains itself—Etonicè frousts) would be unjustifiably but carefully placed on two old punts, or on a punt and an unhinged door, massive as that of Gaza, and on those treacherous rafts committed like Danae to the mercy of the waves."

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *wed- Proto-Indo-European *-r̥ Proto-Indo-European *wódr̥ Proto-Germanic *watōr Proto-West Germanic *watar Old English wæter Middle English water English water English funk English waterfunk Compound of water + funk (“a coward”).

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.