Wiktionary

honk

See also: Honk and hönk

English

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Etymology 1

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Onomatopoeic.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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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
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Translations
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Noun

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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
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Interjection

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honk

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

Etymology 2

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Noun

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honk (plural honks)

  1. Clipping of honky.

See also

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Anagrams

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Dutch

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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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

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Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Papiamentu: honk (dated)

References

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