Expert: Tom Schott - 7/24/2010

Question
Can you tell me the origin of the word "bunt"
Thanks for your time

Dan

Answer
Two ways of looking at this. What's the word derived from in the language, and how did it come to be used in baseball. Both answers below.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php)the origin of the word is thus:

bunt
1825, "to strike with the head or horns," perhaps an alteration of butt (as a goat), or from M.E. bounten "to return." Baseball term is from 1889, noun and verb.

The first instance of a bunt during a baseball game was in a game between the Atlantic and Putnam Base Ball Clubs on June 29, 1860, although bunts had been an important part of other bat-and-ball games before this. This information is from the first volume of Peter Morris's =A Game of Inches=. He tells this story on the origin of the term:

" . . . the term 'bunt' itself appears to have derived from the lullaby 'Bye, Baby Bunting' in an attempt by its detractors to associate it with childishness." (p. 81)