honky
noun
- noun (US, Canada, derogatory, ethnic slur) A white (Caucasian) person.
- noun (US, obsolete) A factory hand or general unskilled worker.
Synonyms
abelungu ang moh Angrez balanda béké bule cac Caucasian cornstarch crusader cracker cumskin Eurangutan European farang firangi gringo gora gussuk gweilo haole whitey honkey honkie
Etymology
Sense of “factory hand” attested from 1946. Compare hunky, bohunk.
Most likely from hunky (“Hungarian, Slav, eastern European; any white person”), an African-American vernacular shortening of Hungarian. Another possible etymon is Wolof xonq (“red, pink”), a term frequently used in African languages to describe white men.
As a term of racial abuse it was popularized by the Black Panther Party starting from 1967, who sought a rebuttal to nigger.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “honky”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details