hanker
/ˈhaŋkə
/verb [no object] (hanker after/for/to do something)
Feel a strong desire for or to do something: he hankered after a lost golden age she hankered to go back...
- Prerequisites are a willingness to experiment, a desire to play, and a hankering to shake up preconceived notions about your art and photography.
- I still hanker to return home with my family one day but my view of NZ when I was growing up in the 1970's is dead and buried.
- I still cannot figure out why the machine dials the Internet every 15 minutes; I've checked every program that hankers to be online, and they all insist they're guiltless.
Synonyms
yearn, long, have a longing, have a hankering, crave, desire, wish, want, hunger, thirst, lust, ache, be aching, itch, be itching, burn, be burning, pant, want badly, be eager, be desperate, be hungry, be greedy, be thirsty, be consumed with a/the desire, be eating one's heart out;
fancy, pine for, have one's heart set on
informal be dying, have a yen
archaic be desirous, be athirst
rare suspire
longing, yearning, craving, desire, wish, need, hunger, thirst, urge, ache, itch, lust, burning, pining, appetite, passion, fancy
informal yen
rare appetency, appetence
Derivatives
hankerer
- Transcribing and translating all this for English-language HK hankerers is Saskatoon, Saskatchewan's own Sanney Leung.
- I want no philosopher queen or king, no prophet exuding revealed truth, no mesmerising Pied Piper, no hawker of appealing mirages, no self-absorbed hankerer for power.
- The main drag for the fashion hankerer is Strand Arcade in the heart of town.
Origin
Early 17th century: probably related to hang; compare with Dutch hunkeren.
Rhymes
- well-laboured
- well-labouring
- well-laced
- well-laden
- well-laid
- well-landed
- well-languaged
- well-learned
- well-leaved
- well-led
- well-left
- well-legged
- well-lettered
- well-lighted
- well liked
- well-liking
- well-limbed
- well-limned
- well-lined
- well-liquored
- well-lit
- well-liveried
- well-living
- well-loaded
- well-lodged