honkern.
/ˈhɒŋkə/, U.S. /ˈhɑŋkər/, /ˈhɔŋkər/ colloquial.
1. North American. The Canada goose, Branta canadensis, which has a loud trumpeting call.
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the world > animals > birds > freshwater birds > order Anseriformes (geese, etc.) > [noun] > member of subfamily Anserinea (goose) > genus Branta > branta canadensis (Canada goose)
Canada goose1676
cravat goose1793
bustard1831
honker1836
Canada1871
trumpeter1897
1836 Amer. Monthly Mag. Mar. 253 Imagine yon duck hawk..striking out a wild gander from a flock of straining honkers.
1883 H. T. Williams Pacific Tourist 263/1 Three varieties are common, the white and speckled-breasted brant, and the hawnker.
1976 Audubon Sept. 132/1 Honkers begin arriving at Horicon in mid-September.
2003 Field & Stream Oct. 82/2 Biologists forecast a larger fall flight of honkers than in 2002.
2.
a. A person who makes a honking sound in some way; esp. a person who (habitually) uses a car horn.
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > voice or vocal sound > sounds like animal or bird sounds > [noun] > honker
honker1891
1891 Outing Oct. 43/1 Though a fair ‘honker’, I cannot successfully imitate the constantly varying note of the snow goose.
1965 New Statesman 6 Aug. 183/3 The honker and the light-flasher drew up alongside.
1992 Weekly World News 2 June 34/4 Heavy Honker—If you lean on the horn a lot, you're outspoken.
2009 N.Y. Times Mag. 6 Sept. 13/2 If the honker knew..he was apt to be a nasal nuisance..he had a duty to..simply stay home.
b. Originally and chiefly U.S. A saxophonist; spec. one who plays rhythm and blues (see quot. 2004). Now chiefly historical.Frequently depreciative in earlier use.
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society > leisure > the arts > music > musician > instrumentalist > wind player > [noun] > saxophone-player
saxophonist1865
alto saxophonist1902
alto saxist1926
sax1926
saxophone1929
honker1934
saxist1939
altoist1946
tenor saxophone1954
baritonist1958
tenorist1958
1934 Los Angeles Times 7 July i. 3/4 (headline) Night club raid quiets ‘sax’. Neighbors who couldn't take it complain to police and judge agrees that tooting must cease; but chief honker escapes law.
1944 Jazz Rec. June 5/2 Jazz is New Orleans or Dixieland or Chicago, it is Big Joe and Papa Mutt. It's a lot of things, but it isn't the music these young honkers are so proud of.
1956 Billboard 22 Sept. 68/3 Musso, one-time tenor sax star with several big bands in the Swing Era, plays here like an inferior rhythm and blues honker.
1972 Jazz & Blues Sept. 12/1 Others in the R & B field..are just dismissed as ‘honkers’.
1985 Texas Monthly Dec. 188/2 Johnny Reno's past sax stints with the Juke Jumpers and Stevie Ray Vaughan served notice that this Fort Worth honker could blow.
2004 J. E. Grandt Kinds of Blue 127 Honkers were..tenorists whose jazz-inflected rhythm-and-blues combined hypnotic riffing, often in the altissimo register, with antics like what was known as ‘walking the bar’.
3. The horn of a car or other motor vehicle.
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society > travel > means of travel > a conveyance > vehicle > powered vehicle > parts and equipment of motor vehicles > [noun] > horn
horn1901
motor horn1904
hooter1908
pip-pip1909
honker1910
1910 E. P. Butler Water Goats & Other Troubles ii. 81 The chauffeur honked his honker.
1938 A. E. Hertzler Horse & Buggy Doctor iv. 83 I honked and honked with one of the old rubber-bulb honkers.
2007 J. Rising But then again I could be Wrong 45 It didn't take that long before I leaned on the honker.
4. slang. The nose. Cf. hooter n.1 d.
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the world > life > the body > external parts of body > head > face > nose > [noun]
noseeOE
naseeOE
nebeOE
billa1000
nesec1175
grunyie?a1513
gnomon1582
nib1585
proboscis1631
handle to (also of, on) one's face1675
snot-gall1685
nozzle1689
bowsprit1690
smeller1699
snitch1699
trunk1699
vessel1813
index1817
conk1819
sneezer1820
scent box1826
snorter1829
snuff-box1829
bugle1847
beak1854
nasal1854
sniffer1858
boko1859
snoot1861
snorer1891
horn1893
spectacles-seat1895
razzo1899
beezer1915
schnozzle1926
schnozzola1929
schnozz1930
snozzle1930
honker1942
hooter1958
1942 L. V. Berrey & M. Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang 150 Nose, honker.
1948 R. Park Harp in South xxi. 267 It's yer own fault for having such a God-forgotten honker.
1989 C. Hiaasen Skin Tight (1990) vii. 76 ‘It's no sin to have a big honker’, Rudy Graveline called after him. ‘Nobody's born perfect.’
2007 N.Y. Times Bk. Rev. 3 June 38/1 When Kaddish and Lillian get nose jobs..Pato refuses to have his monumental honker bobbed.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1836