Entry · catalog no. 1101
honky
/ /ˈhɒŋ.ki/ /HONG-kee
noun · Nationwide · 1960s
✓ Verified
1.
A white person. A blunt, often hostile term for white people, used chiefly by Black speakers.
“He wasn't shy about who he blamed — 'that's the honky's world,' he'd say.”
Origin & Attribution
Adapted in Black speech from "hunky/hunk," an early-1900s slur for Eastern European immigrants (from "Hungarian"). Black workers in Chicago's meatpacking plants are said to have taken it up from white coworkers by the 1940s and turned it on white people generally. Sharpened into a Black Power–era retort, used publicly by Stokely Carmichael in 1967 and popularized by the Black Panthers.
1940s
Adapted from 'hunky' in Black industrial Chicago
1967
Carmichael's public use; Black Panther popularization
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Nationwide · 1960s
Spoken by
Black speakers, nationally
$HONKYThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Fading80 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
40/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1946
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Stokely Carmichael, public address using 'honky' — documented speech · 1967
submitted
■
+ Cite a sourceWordorigins.org / Green's Dictionary of Slang, "honky" — reference · 2000s
submitted
See also