bunt

/bʌnt/ noun, verb, proper noun

Forms bunts bunting bunted

1. noun (nautical) The middle part, cavity, or belly of a sail; the part of a furled sail which is at the center of the yard. “The bunt of the sail was green.”
2. noun A push or shove; a butt.
3. noun (baseball, softball) A ball that has been intentionally hit softly so as to be difficult to field, sometimes with a hands-spread batting stance or with a close-hand, choked-up hand position. No swinging action is involved. “The bunt was fielded cleanly.”
4. noun (baseball, softball) The act of bunting. “The manager will likely call for a bunt here.”
5. noun (aviation) The second half of an outside loop, from level flight to inverted flight.
6. noun (by extension) Any large pilot-commanded pitch-down motion of an aircraft, often producing negative G-forces and resulting in a large negative change in flightpath angle.
7. noun (countable, uncountable) A fungus (Ustilago foetida) affecting the ear of cereals, filling the grains with a foetid dust.
8. verb To push with the horns; to butt.
9. verb To spring or rear up.
10. verb (transitive, baseball) To intentionally hit softly with a hands-spread batting stance. “Jones bunted the ball.”
11. verb (intransitive, baseball) To intentionally hit a ball softly with a hands-spread batting stance. “Jones bunted.”
12. verb (intransitive, aviation) To perform (the second half of) an outside loop.
13. verb (intransitive, nautical) To swell out. “The sail bunts.”
14. verb (rare, of a cat) To headbutt affectionately.
15. proper noun A surname.

Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “bunt”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details