honky

Etymology

Sense of “factory hand” attested from 1946. Compare hunky, bohunk. As a term of racial abuse first attested in 1967, 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.

noun

  1. (Canada, US, derogatory, ethnic slur) A white (Caucasian) person.
    For quotations using this term, see Citations:honky.
  2. (US, obsolete) A factory hand or general unskilled worker.

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