gedunk

n. ice cream, a dessert, a snack, or any easy-to-consume food; a store, mess hall, or other place where such treats are bought or eaten. Also geedunk, gedonk, geedonk. Subjects: English, Food & Drink, Military

Editorial Note: In the 1925 citation to gedunk, meaning ‘to dunk (food),’ is just one of many uses of the term in a regular reader-contributed humorous column, where it was something of a running gag. It is contemporary with and probably related to the gedunk sundaes which appeared in the comic strip “Harold Teen” by Carl Ed, who, in turn, is probably the popularizer of gedunk. The later uses of this term are strongly associated with the Navy.

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Citations: 1925 Chicago Daily Tribune (Jan. 21) “A Line O’ Type Or Two” p. 8: Not once did the gedunked part sever its connection with the ungedunked part and fall geplatsch into the coffee. 1926 E.A. Edmonds Chicago Daily Tribune (Mar. 10) “Gedunk Sundaes” p. 8: You possess one comic feature that is changing the habits of the nation. I refer to Harold Teen and his Gedunk sundae. I have two children, a boy and a girl, now of high school age, and I have spent many a painstaking hour teaching them correct table manners. Their conduct was above reproach until the notorious Gedunk sundae made its appearance. 1982 Richard Harrington Washington Post (Apr. 8) “Circus!” p. B1: You could pack any doubts about the wonderfulness of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus into a toy poodle’s knapsack and still have plenty of room for cotton candy and other spectator geedunks. 1984 Omaha World-Herald (Neb.) (Feb. 15) “Memories Kindled by Ship’s Rebirth” (in Iowa): We had about four barber chairs, a clothing store, a “Geedunk,” that’s an ice-cream store, our own laundry and water system. 1993 Lewis Shiner Glimpses: A Novel (July 1) p. 47: The rest of the day I just hung around the geedunk, you know, the PX. 1996 James Patterson The Thomas Berryman Number (Apr. 1) p. 33: I put cream and raw sugar in my coffee. All motions. I wasn’t going to drink the muddy geedunk. It reminded me of the Mississippi River. 1996 Ben Bradlee A Good Life (Sept. 11) p. 65: Then we would ask the carrier to send over all the geedunk (ice cream) they had. 2000 Sean Clancy, Barbara D. Livingston Saratoga Days (Aug. 15) p. 182: A geedunk stand (that’s a term my father uses for quick food stores). 2001 Joy Waldron Jasper, James P. Delgado, Jim Adams USS Arizona (Nov. 15) p. 54: It depended on where you were and what your uniform was, what you could do. It wasn’t too bad a life. We’d go down to the ice cream parlor and get a geedunk—a pint of ice cream—and go to the movies. 2003 Robert McKenna Dictionary of Nautical Literacy (June 23) p. 136: geedunk, naval term for dessert, candy, junk food, or a place to buy same. 2004 Jim Kinney Saratogian (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.) (Sept. 16) “Sub grub was never gourmet”: Ron Phelix, a sub vet from the Malone area, raved about the food on the USS Skipjack from 1960 to ‘64. He said they had “geeddunks,” a slang term for doughnuts and cinnamon buns, each night at midnight.

Posted 16 Sep 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

I enlisted in the Navy 11-15-1961, Newark, NJ. While waiting to take the oath, a Machinist 1st class told us we could visit the “geedunk”.
I asked him where that name came from and he said, in a very grovely voice, “ I’ve been in the Navy 31 years and that’s what it was called when I came in. I don’t know where it came from.”

by David Fox 02 Feb 06, 0550 GMT

As a child, I often heard my Navy father use the term “geedunk” to refer to an ice-cream sundae. That was in the 1940s and 1950s.

by Marion R. McNairy 08 Oct 06, 1122 GMT

My father was in the Navy in 1946 and his shipmates called him “Gedunk” because he didn’t smoke, drink, or sleep around.

by Sidney Brand 18 Jan 07, 0623 GMT

Hi Grant! This is so odd - I had been thinking about this word this week for some reason, how nice to see it on your website. When I was a child in the Panama Canal Zone (1963-65)we kids looked forward to the daily visit of the Gedunk Wagon - a panel truck that would drive slowly through the neighborhood, sort of like the Good Humor Ice Cream Truck. We would run out in swarms to flag the truck down. There was a windowin the back where we could buy candy, soft drinks and snacks, it might have sold bread and other staples too. I figured it was a Navy term, we lived in Naval housing, but I never knew exactly what it meant. Wikipedia says it comes from the sound a vending machine makes. But it sounds like from your citations and the other comments that the word may have existed before vending machines.

by Brenda McDonald 27 Apr 07, 0442 GMT

Gedunk and pogie bait were terms used for any type food not good for you, but used mostly to describe sweets..
The term gedunk did originate in the Navy long before vending machines.. Both terms were used also in the Army and perhaps in the other branches of service as well…

by wahoo 01 May 07, 0321 GMT

My son and I took a tour of the USS Yorktown. The tour guide served on a similar carrier. He asked several old cooks from the WW2 era. He always got the same answer. The carriers all had ice cream machines. When the machine had finished, the operator had to open it. The sound of opening was gadunk. He figured a southern sailor had changed it to gedunk.

by Dale Cook 04 Jun 07, 0208 GMT

Hi,

You have so many entries fro “geedunk”, which is great, but how do you pronounce it?

by Susan Mackewich 21 Nov 07, 0903 GMT

It’s “GEE-dunk,” Susan. With a G as in “g-man” or the first syllable of “Jesus.”

by Grant Barrett 21 Nov 07, 0914 GMT

Not so, Susan. The “G” is hard as in goat or gum. The G sound is pronounced like Geese or Geek. I never saw it printed, but my four Navy years exposed me to hearing it almost every day.

by Doug Coleman 17 Dec 07, 0845 GMT

I too believe it’s the sound anything makes as it drops from a height. The ice cream scoops for the 1926 Gedunk sundae would make such a sound when dropping the scoops from a height into the sundae dish, and it’s the sound vending machines make when dispensing snacks. I’ve also heard the term used when people fall off a skate board onto their head.

by Mike Tate 22 May 08, 0835 GMT