Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also hawnker) a goose.

a.1841		W. Hawes Sporting Scenes I 178: We have killed wild geese [...] and we know what it is to bring down a glorious gaggle of honkers to our stool [DAE].
1879		H.T. Williams Pacific Tourist 275/2: Three varieties are common, the white and speckled breasted brant, and the hawnker [DA].
1926		E.P. Norwood Other Side of the Circus 151: I run a geese college [...] I’ve been raising and training the old honkers there for going on twenty years.
1948		Time 11 Oct. 21/2: Honkers were winging their way south in high Vs and deer were beginning their migration from high country.
1974		C. Loken Come Monday Morning 123: The big honkers headin’ home.
1985		T. Wolff ‘The Sister’ in Back in the World 84: ‘[A]n angle of geese flew across the sky. Honkers, her brother called them’.

2. (also honk) the nose .

1942		Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Sl.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 47: He had the long honk you can’t resist taking a swipe at.
1965		E. Bond Saved Scene vi: ’Onk like a yid.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 73: It’s no sin to have a big honker.
1991		Eble Campus Sl. Mar.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 9: A shit-talkin clown [...] who walked up and dissed you playfully but pointedly [...] until you buried a stiff fist right in that big old honker.
2016		N. Cummins Adventures of the Honey Badger [ebook] VITAL AUSSIE VERNACULAR NOSE: 1. Cherry picker 2. Beak 3. Honker 4. Sniffer.
2017		Twitter 12 Aug. 🌐 Keep your honker out of our business.

3. (US) a player of a brass instrument.

1963

M. Braly Shake Him Till He Rattles (1964) 14: These cats are honkers.