chunk

Etymology

Variant of chuck; or alternatively a diminutive of chump (“chunk; block”) + *-k (diminutive suffix) (compare hunk from hump, etc.).

noun

1. A part of something that has been separated.
   The statue broke into chunks.
   Daylight, between mouthfuls, fed chunks of ice into the tin pot, where it thawed into water. ... Daylight cut up generous chunks of bacon and dropped them in the pot of bubbling beans. 1910, Jack London, Burning Daylight
2. A representative portion of a substance, often large and irregular.
   a chunk of granite
3. (linguistics, education) A sequence of two or more words that occur in language with high frequency but are not idiomatic; a bundle or cluster.
   examples of chunks would include "in accordance with", "the results of", and "so far"
4. (computing) A discrete segment of a file, stream, etc. (especially one that represents audiovisual media); a block.
   The first DWORD of a chunk data in the RIFF chunk is a four character code value identifying the form type of the file. 1994, Paul J Perry, Multimedia developer's guide
5. (comedy) A segment of a comedian's performance.
   You begin gathering two hours of dependable comedy by developing that first three-minute chunk. When you're satisfied with it, you create another three minutes of laughs, then another three minutes. 1994, Gene Perret, Successful Stand-up Comedy: Advice from a Comedy Writer, page 80
   If you're gigging outdoors for the Society of Catholic Gardeners, don't close your set with your "Papa Beelzebub" chunk (no matter how life affirming you think it is!). 2012, Jay Sankey, Zen and the Art of Stand-Up Comedy, page 168

verb

1. (transitive) To break into large pieces or chunks.
2. (transitive) To break down (language, etc.) into conceptual pieces of manageable size.
   These results offer tentative evidence that suggests that certain components of computer-mediated instruction (in this case, access to and control over syntactically chunked, captioned video) are not necessarily beneficial for certain learners […] 2005, Yong Zhao, Research in Technology and Second Language Education
3. (transitive, slang, chiefly Southern US) To throw.
4. (transitive, video games) Deal a substantial amount of damage to an opponent.
   He's chunked right before the next battle so he has to regen HP.