hunker
/ˈhʌŋkɚ/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: 2.43 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
name
A surname
Example Sentences
- "Get out of the mobile home and hunker in a ditch"
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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, huka, *hūkan-, *kuk-néh₂
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˈhʌŋkɚ/
- British English: /ˈhʌŋkə/