hunk

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /hʌŋk/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌŋk

Etymology 1

Probably borrowed from West Flemish hunke (“hunk; chunk”), of obscure origin. Probably from an earlier *humke, *humpke, a diminutive related to Dutch homp (“hunk; lump”), English hump, equivalent to hump +‎ -kin. The sense of an attractive man is recorded in Australian slang in 1941, in jive talk in 1945.

Noun

hunk (plural hunks)

1. A large or dense piece of something.

   a hunk of metal

   • 1884 December 10, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter IX, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: (Tom Sawyer’s Comrade) […], London: Chatto & Windus, […], →OCLC:

     "Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread."

   • 1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 39:

     A cowherd was sitting by the roadside eating this food, and as he was one of those pudding-faced, basin-clipped, decent fellows, he cut off two medium great hunks of bread and cheese for them.

2. (informal) An attractive man, especially one who is muscular.
   • 2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:

     The unfortunate thing about calling the season seven finale “The Dragon And The Wolf” is you can’t even reference it by name without picturing Daenerys Targaryen’s long-awaited hook-up with Jon Snow, her strapping hunk of an ally and also her nephew.

   • April 5 2022, Tina Brown, “How Princess Diana’s Dance With the Media Impacted William and Harry”, in Vanity Fair‎^[2]:

     Diana’s most recent romantic adventure at that time was with the sturdy hunk Will Carling, captain of the England rugby team, whom she had met in 1995 working out at the Chelsea Harbor Club gym.

     adapted from the book The Palace Papers, published 2022 by Penguin Books

3. (computing) A record of differences between almost contiguous portions of two files (or other sources of information). Differences that are widely separated by areas which are identical in both files would not be part of a single hunk. Differences that are separated by small regions which are identical in both files may comprise a single hunk. Patches are made up of hunks.
4. (US, slang) A honyock.
   • 1941, William Woodrow Chamberlain, Leaf Gold, page 76:

     "You ain't callin' me a country hunk, are you?" "Hell, naw!" Louie backed away and grinned.

Synonyms

• (large or dense piece): chunk, lump, piece
• (an attractive boy): beefcake

Derived terms

• hunk of junk
• hunky
• twunk

 

Translations

large piece of something

• Bulgarian: кома́т (bg) m (komát) (of bread)
• Catalan: tros (ca) m
• Danish: stort stykke, luns
• Finnish: kimpale (fi), möykky (fi)
• German: Stück (de) n
• Ingrian: koma
• Italian: pezzo (di carne-pane) (it), tozzo (di pane) (it)
• Lithuanian: riekė (lt) f
• Portuguese: naco (pt), pedaço (pt)
• Romanian: halcă (ro) f, bucată (ro) f
• Russian: (of food) ломо́ть (ru) m (lomótʹ)
• Scottish Gaelic: sgonn m
• Spanish: pedazo (es) m

an attractive man

• Danish: tyr (da)
• Dutch: bink (nl) m
• Finnish: adonis, namupala, herkkupala, lihaskimppu (fi), muskelimies (fi)
• French: bellâtre (fr) m
• German: Prachtkerl m
• Greek: καμάκι (el) n (kamáki)
• Hebrew: חָתִיךְ (he) m (ḥatich), לִירְד (he) m (lird) (gay slang)
• Irish: fear breá m, leadhb f, píosa (ga) m, staic f, staic láidir, staic bhreá d'fhear
• Italian: bellimbusto (it) m, gnocco (it) m, fusto (it), marcantonio (it)
• Lithuanian: tikras vyras m
• Maori: kōpaka
• Portuguese: pedaço de mau caminho (pt)
• Romanian: armăsar (ro) m
• Russian: краса́вец (ru) m (krasávec), краса́вчик (ru) m (krasávčik)
• Spanish: macizo (es) m; galán (es) m, (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia) churro (es) m, (Latin America) mijito rico m, guapetón (es) m, mino (es) m (Argentina, Chile)
• Swedish: muskelknutte c
• Turkish: biftekkek

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 獵豔高手／猎艳高手 (lièyàn gāoshǒu)

• German: Herzensbrecher (de) m, Frauenschwarm (de) m
• Japanese: 色男 (ja) (いろおとこ, irootoko)
• Russian: сердцее́д (ru) m (serdcejéd) (jocular, lit.: "heart eater")
• Swedish: kvinnokarl (sv)

See also

• bohunk

Etymology 2

From Dutch honk (“the base in a game”).

Noun

hunk

1. (US) A goal or base in children's games.

References

• “hunk” in the Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Second Edition, Oxford University Press, 2004.
• Douglas Harper (2001–2024) “hunk”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.