Dictionary Definition
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Pronunciation
- Rhymes with: -ɒŋki
Etymology
Term of racial abuse attested 1967, most likely from hunky an African-American vernacular shortening of Hungarian. Sense of "factory hand" attested from 1946.Noun
- A Caucasian person.
- A factory hand or general unskilled worker.
Synonyms
See also
References
Extensive Definition
Honky, Honkey or Honkie is a predominantly
American
pejorative racial slur
for white
people, often applied to males.
Honky is a corruption of hungy or hunky, a term
which originated in the stockyards and slaughterhouses of Chicago.
The term may derive from "Bohunk" (Bohemian-Hungarian), which was
used to refer to central Europeans. Black workers and Hungarian
workers were two of the largest ethnic groups in the Chicago meat
industry. Racial and ethnic tension between the two groups led
Black workers to begin calling Hungarian workers, and those
perceived as Hungarian workers, hunky, perhaps in retaliation for
the familiar racist epithets to which black workers were subject.
The corruption 'honky' emerged shortly thereafter.
Honkey was later adopted as a pejorative in 1967
by black militants within
SNCC seeking a rebuttal for the term nigger. National Chairman of the
SNCC H. Rap Brown, on June 24, 1967, told an audience of blacks in
Cambridge, "You should burn that school down and then go take over
the honkey's school." Brown went on to say: "If America don't come
`round, we got to burn it down. You better get some guns, brother.
The only thing the honkey respects is a gun. You give me a gun and
tell me to shoot my enemy, I might shoot Ladybird."
In Australasia and
Singapore, a person of Hong Kong origin is categorised as a Hongky
or "Hongkie", a term that some people of Hong Kong take offense at.
They prefer to be called Hongkongers (or
Hongkongese). In
fact several brochures from the Hong Kong Tourism Board make
reference to this new term.
On the TV show The
Jeffersons, George Jefferson regularly referred to white people
as honkys. This usage (while negatively affecting the later
syndication of the show to some degree) added a familiar, less
offensive tone to the word, which caused some acceptance of the
term when used in the appropriate company, much in the same way
earlier television shows had disseminated racial slurs about
blacks.
Footnotes
Bibliography
- Associated Press. "Rap Brown Claims Riots LBJ's Fault". Associated Press (Washington D.C.) wire service report, June 28, 1967.
- Chamberlain, John. "'Carmichael Specializes in Hate,' A Contrast to George Schuyler". New York: King Features Syndicate (newspaper column), June 1, 1967.
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
American Indian, Amerind, Australian aborigine,
Bushman, Caucasian, Indian, Malayan, Mister Charley,
Mongolian, Negrillo, Negrito, Negro, Oriental, Red Indian, WASP, black, black man, blackfellow, boy, brown man, burrhead, colored person,
coon, darky, gook, jigaboo, jungle bunny, nigger, niggra, ofay, paleface, pygmy, red man, redskin, slant-eye, spade, the Man, white, white man, whitey, yellow man