quonk

English

WOTD – 13 December 2011

Etymology

Imitative.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkwɒŋk/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɒŋk

Noun

quonk (uncountable)

1. Unwanted noise picked up by a microphone in a broadcasting studio.
2. Audience chatter that disturbs the performer.

Verb

quonk (third-person singular simple present quonks, present participle quonking, simple past and past participle quonked)

1. (intransitive) To produce unwanted noise.
   • 2004, Alastair Scott, Stuffed Lives:

     The microphone quonked, caused the speakers to emit an electronic belch which looped and reverberated […]

2. (intransitive) To honk.
   • 1902, Cooper Ornithological Society, The Condor:

     As we pushed among the reeds in the swamp, the grebes could be heard quonking in the buckbrush or beyond it.

   • 1999, Ronald Rompkey, Eliot Curwen, Labrador Odyssey:

     […] no goose was heard there, but lower down we heard some "quonking," […]