hunker
UK /ˈhʌŋkə/ · US /ˈhʌŋkɚ/ verb, noun, proper noun
Forms hunkers hunkering hunkered
- verb (intransitive) To crouch or squat close to the ground or lie down.
- verb (intransitive) To apply oneself to a task.
- noun (dated) A political conservative.
- proper noun A surname
Synonyms
Etymology
Originally Scottish. Origin uncertain, but probably of Germanic origin, perhaps *hunk- a nasalised variant of *huk- (compare Scots hoonk, hounk, variants of huk, hok (“to squat, crouch”); Scots hocker (“to crouch down, hunker”)), all of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse huka (“to crouch”), from Proto-Germanic *hūkan- (“to squat”), from *hūkkan-, back-formed from the iterative *huk(k)ōn-, from Proto-Indo-European *kuk-néh₂, from *kewk- (“to curve, bend”) (also the source of high).
Probable cognates include Old Norse húka, Dutch huiken, and German hocken.
Unknown
Webster’s 1913
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “hunker”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details