English

Verb

crunk ‎(third-person singular simple present crunks, present participle crunking, simple past and past participle crunked)

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To cry like a crane.
   • Withals (1608)

     The crane crunketh.

   • The Country Man (poem)

     The crunking crane heard high amongst the clouds.

Etymology 2

Blend of crazy +‎ drunk “crazy drunk”. Alternatively, Blend of chronic ‎(“marijuana”) +‎ drunk “high on marijuana and drunk (on alcohol) at the same time”.

Coined Southern US late-1980s, in original sense of “rowdy, high energy out-of-control behavior by a crowd at Southern night clubs”.^[1] Popularized by its use in the fusion genre of crunk music in the 1990s and especially early 2000s. In this context, first used in music lyrics and notably popularized by Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, on their 1997 debut album Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album (Get Crunk, Who [are] You With[?]: The Album).^[2] See Crunk: etymology at Wikipedia for further information.

There is no evidence of any connection with Yiddish or German krank ‎(“sick, ill”), nor that it entered the Southern Black vernacular through the presence of European Jewish immigrant shopkeepers in black neighborhoods in cities such as Atlanta; the phonetic similarity of the words is considered a coincidence.^[3]

Alternative forms

• krunk

Adjective

crunk ‎(comparative crunker, superlative crunkest)

1. (US, slang) crazy and drunk; according to the Double-Tongued Word Wrester dictionary, good, phat, fine
   • 2009, Kesha, Tik Tok

     I'm talking about everybody getting crunk, crunk

     Boys tryin' to touch my junk, junk

     Gonna smack him if he getting too drunk, drunk

2. (US, slang) simultaneously intoxicated by marijuana and alcohol
   • She is so **** crunk right now.
3. (US, slang) of an absurd amount
   • I have a crunk ton of homework tonight.

Quotations

• 1997, Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, Who U Wit, on Get Crunk, Who U Wit: Da Album

  Get crunk, who u wit’?

• 2002, Ashanti, Foolish/Unfoolish

  Let me tell you how I like it / If we’re all in a crowd / I like to be the one they single out / Let me tell you how to please me / Can you get it crunk and make my body jump?

• 2003, Todd Boyd, The New H.N.I.C.

  Using their trademark southern dialect, the group tell others to “huss that fuss,” shut up and move, for they, Outkast, are the type of people who “make the club get crunk,” in other words, make you get up and jam, with “crunk” here functioning as a sort of past perfect sense of the word “crank.”

• 2005, Tamara Palmer, Country Fried Soul

  I just saw how much of an influence Tupac had on Master P and No Limit, how much of an influence Tupac had on the whole city of Atlanta, Georgia, and on Houston, Texas, and just how much influence on influence on that whole ‘Bankhead [Bounce]’ and getting crunk certain songs of Makaveli had on that ****.

Noun

crunk ‎(uncountable)

1. A type of hip hop that originated in the southern United States.
   • 2004, Crunk Classics [title]
   • 2005, Michael Joseph Corcoran, All Over the Map

     As Houston rap became a national sensation, spinning off into the “crunk” scene, it was hard to believe that just ten years earlier, the only Texas rap acts of any note were Donald “The D.O.C.” Curry, the Dallasite who hooked up with Dr. Dre and the N.W.A. crew, and the Geto Boys, who set out to make West Coast gangstas come off like Young MC.

   • 2005, Tamara Palmer, Country Fried Soul

     On Slanguistics, a special on the MTV2 cable network, Andre 3000 offerred a succinct analogy for crunk. “What punk was to rock,” he explains, “crunk is to rap.”

   • 2005, David Katz, Things a Man Should Never Do Past 30

     Use a “crunk” song for his cell-phone ring.

   • 1997, Stephen King, "The Wizard and the Glass"

     "...talking that stupid crunk of theirs." There was no proper word for the dialect of the Mejic Vaqueros, but "crunk" served well enough among the Barony's higher-born citizens.

See also

• Wikipedia article on crunk

References

1. ↑ Miller, Matt: "Dirty Decade: Rap Music and the U.S. South, 1997-2007".
2. ↑ "Lil Jon crunks up the volume", NY Times, November 28, 2004
3. ↑ See this LanguageLog post for information on the high probability of chance similarity among languages.