hunky
1 Americanadjective
noun
-
hunkies
plural
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of hunky1
An Americanism dating back to 1860–65; from obsolete New York City slang term hunk, used especially by boys at play for home base, home (the goal); from Dutch honk “post, station, base, home” + -y 1 ( def. ); see also hunky-dory ( def. )
Origin of hunky2
First recorded in 1910–15; hunk + -y 1
Origin of hunky3
First recorded in 1905–10; (bo)hunk ( def. ) + -y 2 ( def. )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
He’s both movie-star hunky and action-star engrossing, flitting between these two deceptively binary ends without breaking a sweat.
From Salon ● Mar. 21, 2026
One was the awestruck girl from the South discovering New York City for the first time, another was the hunky model, aspiring actor, and so on.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 18, 2026
"We have a further letter, and that's from HMP Blundeston, and a signed photograph of Reggie lifting some weights and looking quite hunky," he added.
From BBC ● Feb. 4, 2024
Though Nan is not in the market for a husband, she will, on the strength of her unselfconscious exuberance, ready wit and obvious goodness attract the interest of not one but two hunky aristocrats.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 7, 2023
“Thank you, sir. Sir—” “Don’t mention it. How do you like living out there in the woods, Chaplain? Is everything hunky dory?”
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
“The Stockyards’ owners imported Billy Sunday to divert their underpaid hunkies from going on strike by shouting them dizzy with God,” he tells us.
From The New Yorker ● Feb. 4, 2019
Harris Burnham, hearing his aunt thus condemn his excursion into socialistic journalism, replies by going to work with the hunkies in a copper mill.
From Time Magazine Archive
The bear howled murder as the stuff ran into his eyes, and plunking himself on his hunkies, he began to paw and scrape it out.
From Red Saunders' Pets and Other Critters by Henry Wallace Phillips
He looked like a shorter, hunkier Robert Redford, immediately getting more of my attention than I usually gave to the next fare.
From Salon ● Jan. 2, 2016
Then there’s Steve Jobs, as played by his hunkier lookalike Ashton Kutcher — that should have lured some people to the box office.
From Time ● Aug. 18, 2013
Our age demands something hunkier, less menacing, sort of a surfer dude to help us catch the curl of our last wave gracefully.
From Time Magazine Archive
First of all, George Clooney is both hunkier and a better actor than Chad Everett.
From Time Magazine Archive
Gidget, the character, reads literature, plays the cello and surfs only with dudes, wooing the hunkiest one: Moondoggie.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2023
The Durrells are still in Corfu in “The Durrells in Corfu” and “Poldark” is still the hunkiest fellow in Cornwall as these two period dramas return for new seasons on “Masterpiece.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 28, 2018
So who cared about the world premiere of Dr. No, the first film made from Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, or about the introduction of Sean Connery as Her Majesty’s hunkiest secret servant?
From Time ● Oct. 5, 2012
Ponder beat the Twins’ catcher/heartthrob Joe Mauer in a Minneapolis radio contest to determine the region’s hunkiest athlete.
From New York Times ● Oct. 28, 2011
An' Billy ain't none back'ard admittin' he is, an' allows on hesitatin' it's the hunkiest baby in Arizona.
From Wolfville by Alfred Henry Lewis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
