hunky

English

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): /ˈhʌŋki/
  • Audio (AU)(file)

Etymology 1

From hunk +‎ -y.

Adjective

hunky (comparative hunkier, superlative hunkiest)

  1. (slang) Exhibiting strong, masculine beauty.
  2. Shaped like a hunk, or piece; chunky.
  3. (US, slang) All right; in good condition.
  4. (US, slang) even; square; on equal footing with
    • Stephen Crane
      […] he dropped like a brick into the firing line and began to shoot; began to get "hunky" with all those people who had been plugging at him.

Etymology 2

From the older hunk, probably alteration of Hungarian. Compare bohunk.

Alternative forms

Noun

hunky (plural hunkies)

  1. (Canada, US, slang, ethnic slur) A lower-class person of Hungarian, Romanian, or Slavic, especially Ruthenian, descent.
    • 2009, Victor Bockris, Warhol: The Biography‎, page 20:
      Like blacks, who were the only ethnic group below them on the social scale, Eastern Europeans, contemptuously labelled ‘hunkies’, were dismissed as incapable and untrustworthy.

References
  • “hunky” in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2004.
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