dunkirk
noun
Simple meaning
A seaport in northern France on the North Sea.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
duhnkerkSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈdʌnkɚk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A seaport in northern France on the North Sea; scene of the evacuation of British forces in 1940 during World War II
A western suburb of Nottingham, Nottinghamshire (OS grid ref SK5538).
A place in the United States
A place in England
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Formality
- Technical
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A seaport in northern France on the North Sea; scene of the evacuation of British forces in 1940 during World War II
Used this way, dunkirk is a reasonably familiar word with a faintly unfavourable edge. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Slightly negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Critical or judgemental
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Nearby words
- dunkerque , rarer, so it draws attention
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use dunkirk
- “The Russians had to pull off a Dunkirk to get out of there.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: seaport in northern France on the North Sea
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.