Talk:honky

Etymology

Previously in Etymology section of honky

There are multiple speculative etymologies, including origination from the practice of caucasian men looking for african-american hookers in Harlem in the 1920s by honking their car horns.

Or...the fact that african-americans derogatorily consider a caucasian person's skin to be similar to a pig's skin and as a pig honks, so honky.

Previously in Etymology section of honkey

African-American variant of hunkey; but, according to Crying Wolof:Does the word hip really hail from a West African language? by Jesse Sheidlower, the claim that this is derived from Wolof is erroneous.

Interesting, I had always heard that the term came from african-americans thinking caucasions had a particularly nasally sound to their voices that sounded similar to honking (like a ducks 'honk').

In my opinion, all this is missing a rather large boat -- my understanding is that the term was derived from the word 'Yanqui' (with all the senses that "Yankee" has) to refer to white folks. Makes no sense to try to adapt a white-nativist slur term like 'hunky' to explain it...

Dictionary notes

hunky is in dictionaries, but honkey is not in dictionaries. Honkey appears to be a fictional creation of the 1970s.