colloq. and dial. [app. a modification of CHUCK. Esp. common in U.S.]
1. A thick, more or less cuboidal, lump, cut off anything; e.g., wood, bread, cheese, meat, etc.
1691. Ray, S. & E. Country Wds. (E. D. S.), Chuck, a great chip…. In other countries [= districts] they call it a chunk.
1841. Catlin, N. Amer. Ind. (1844), I. xvi. 116. Chunks of this marrow-fat are cut off.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. i. 15. A chunk of frozen walrus-beef.
1859. Times, 17 Feb., 9/2. There is a considerable quantity of this kind of gold at present in Victoria in the state of chunks and flakes of some size.
1882. Besant, All Sorts, 83. Give him a chunk of wood to whittle.
1888. Berksh. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Chunks, split pieces of firewood of more uniform thickness than chumps.
fig. 1848. New York in Slices, 101 (Bartl.). Now and then a small chunk of sentiment or patriotism or philanthropy is thrown in awkwardly among the crudities and immoralities of the scene.
1876. Besant & Rice, Gold. Butterfly, xxix. 219. Pay out the information in small chunks.
2. attrib. and Comb., as chunk firewood; chunk-head (U.S.), a serpent of the rattlesnake family.
1880. Libr. Univ. Knowl., IV. 314. Copperhead … called ‘deaf adder,’ and ‘chunk-head.’
1888. E. Morning News (Hull), 25 Oct., 2/4. For sale, Chunk Firewood, 1s. per cwt.
Hence Chunk v. U.S. colloq., ‘to throw sticks or chips at one’ (Bartlett).
