Wiktionary

honk

See also: Honk and hönk

English edit

Etymology 1 edit

Onomatopoeic.

Pronunciation edit

Verb edit

honk (third-person singular simple present honks, present participle honking, simple past and past participle honked)

  1. (transitive, intransitive) To use a car horn.
    They stood and observed how long it took for the other cars to honk.
  2. (intransitive) To make a loud, harsh sound like a car horn.
  3. (intransitive) To make the vocal sound of a goose.
  4. (slang, intransitive) To vomit.
    • 1992, Wayne's World (film):
      WAYNE: Phil, what are you doing here? You're partied out, man. Again.
      GARTH: What if he honks in the car?
  5. (slang) To have a bad smell.
    Synonyms: stink, pong
  6. (informal) To squeeze playfully, usually a breast or nose.
    She honked my titties.
Derived terms edit
Translations edit

Noun edit

honk (countable and uncountable, plural honks)

  1. The harsh note produced by a typical car horn.
    • 1961 July, J. Geoffrey Todd, “Impressions of railroading in the United States:Part Two”, in Trains Illustrated, page 424:
      The operator went out on to the platform with his handlamp and waved it in the traditional "wash-out" signal across the body. The engineer had been expecting this and responded at once with an acknowledging honk on the horn before bringing this huge, 16-car train gently to a stand at the platform.
  2. The cry of a goose or similar bird.
  3. (slang) A bad smell.
    Synonyms: stink, pong
Translations edit

Interjection edit

honk

  1. Imitation of car horn, used, for example, to clear a path for oneself.
Translations edit
Translations

Etymology 2 edit

Noun edit

honk (plural honks)

  1. Clipping of honky.

See also edit

Anagrams edit

Dutch edit

Etymology edit

From Middle Dutch honc, likely through Old Dutch from Proto-Germanic *hank-, *hunk-. Only has cognates in the Frisian languages and possibly in the Old High German placename Hancwin. Since cognates outside of Germanic are lacking, the word is probably of substrate origin.[1] Possibly related to haak (“hook”) and hoek (“corner”).

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

honk n (plural honken, diminutive honkje n)

  1. (somewhat rare) home, place where one belongs, shelter
  2. (games) base (safe zone, e.g. in baseball and similar sports)

Synonyms edit

Derived terms edit

Descendants edit

  • → Papiamentu: honk (dated)

References edit

  1. ^ van der Sijs, Nicoline, editor (2010), “honk”, in Etymologiebank, Meertens Institute
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