HONKY

Meaning

A white (Caucasian) person.

Etymology

Origin: Unknown

Sense of “factory hand” attested from 1946. Compare hunky, bohunk. Most likely from hunky (“Hungarian, Slav, eastern European; any white person”), an African-American vernacular shortening of Hungarian. Another possible etymon is Wolof xonq (“red, pink”), a term frequently used in African languages to describe white men. As a term of racial abuse it was popularized by the Black Panther Party starting from 1967, who sought a rebuttal to nigger.

Synonyms & Antonyms

NYT Puzzle Appearances

No published puzzle dates on file for this word yet. It is part of the official NYT Spelling Bee word list for 2019.