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The Japanese term ‘honcho-dori’ means something like ‘main street’ and many cities there have one. US sailors would have known the word ‘hunky’ and could have added the Japanese word for road (‘dori’) as an allusion to the ‘easy street’ they found themselves in in Japan.
The meaning of HUNKY-DORY is quite satisfactory : fine. How to use hunky-dory in a sentence.
HUNKY-DORY definition: 1. If events or situations are hunky-dory, they are very satisfactory and pleasant: 2. If events…. Learn more.
Hunky-dory definition: about as well as one could wish or expect; satisfactory; fine; OK.. See examples of HUNKY-DORY used in a sentence.
Feb 8, 2011 · There's no agreed derivation of the expression 'hunky-dory'. It is American and the earliest example of it in print that I have found is from a collection of US songs, George Christy's Essence of Old Kentucky, 1862.
- My two favourite sources for this kind of question are The Word Detective and World Wide Words . They both cite the Japanese road theory, the Word...
- The earliest I found is in the 1866 book Tony Pastor's Waterfall Songster: A Splendid Collection of the Newest Comic Songs, Written and Sung by the...
- Etymonline says 1866, Amer.Eng. (popularized c.1870 by a Christy Minstrel song), perhaps a reduplication of hunkey "all right, satisfactory" (1861)...
- Here's what I found in a New York State newspaper from 1870: The slang expression of hunky dory is Scotch, and is a synonym of the Latin "non compo...
- Derived from the Latin, "Hunkous Dorius" who was known for his fair disposition said to arise from his parentage, his father being an owl and his m...
When things are hunky-dory, they're just fine. Once you've started your new job and rented a lovely apartment, you might feel that life in a new city is hunky-dory. The informal hunky-dory is perfect for those times when everything is great, going according to plan, or not bad at all.
Define hunky-dory. hunky-dory synonyms, hunky-dory pronunciation, hunky-dory translation, English dictionary definition of hunky-dory. adj. Slang Perfectly satisfactory; fine. American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
