honkie, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

honkie n.

also honk, honkey, honky

[abbr. bohunk n. (1); the black use is a development of the white hunky n. (1), the orig. name for Poles who worked in Chicago stockyards. The change of the white ‘u’ to the black ‘o’ supposedly accentuates the black desire, embodied in the black militants of the 1960s, to distance themselves as far as possible from the object of their distaste]

1. (US black) a white person, occas. a light-skinned Latino.

1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 216: Man, I’m down with it, stickin’ like a honky.
1968		N. Giovanni ‘Of Liberation’ Black Feeling, Black Heart (1970) 45: Honkies rule the world / Where’s your power Black people.
1971		B. Malamud Tenants (1972) 42: Split, honky, you smell.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 183: I snatched that honkey off Vickie so hard, I damn near broke his fuckin’ neck.
1974		R. Dennis Deadly Cotton Heart in Complete Hardman 1026: ‘This honk? He ain’t nothing to me’.
1978		J. Webb Fields of Fire (1980) 369: People ain’t never goan’ think niggers an’ honkies are the same.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 318: That’ll show the rest of the honkies out there that the abos aren’t going to be fucked with anymore.
1981		G.V. Higgins Rat on Fire (1982) 55: What you are is actual honky, except you’re kind of dark for it. But the honkies like that, don’t they. They like havin’ a pet nigger around.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 181: Kennedy just got tired of being called a mick, or a honky, or an ofay, or a faggot.
1991		B. Stewart Broken Arse I vi: Hey Honky! Read the fuckin’ sign! No whites! Get your white arse outta this iron room!
1998		K. Anderson Night Dogs 268: Someone [...] shouted ‘Honky peckerwoods’.
1998		G. Burn Happy Like Murderers 54: There was one black man [...] and he was a character, and called them all ‘honkies’.
2000		W.T. Vollmann Royal Family 358: He’s a honky. I don’t do honkies.
2002		‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 44: Wish you could wipe them honkeys off the Earth as you know it?
2006		G. Malkani Londonstani (2007) 126: We din’t call u honky da way u goras used 2 call us Pakis.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 212: The honky. Probably cheats on his wife with prostitutes, your boss.
2019		N. Walker Cherry 67: Drill Sergeant Masters was a perfect honky if ever there were such a thing.

2. an ice-cream bar.

1994

C. Major Juba to Jive.

3. a phoney person.

1971

J. Mandelkau Buttons 141: You’re honkies.

4. a man, usu. derog. and used by any race.

1986		L. Heinemann Paco’s Story (1987) 38: Warn’t that honky somethin’?
1992		K. Lette Llama Parlour 198: I’m gonna find one rich honkey an’ screw him for everythin’ he’s got.

In derivatives

honkymobile (n.) [-mobile sfx]

(US black) any car seen as unfashionable and thus driven only by whites.

1976

R. Price Blood Brothers 141: Tha’s [i.e. a Ford Mustang] weak! Tha’s a honkymobile [...] Man, ah wouldn’t be caught dead in nothin but a LD.

In compounds

honkietown (n.)

(US black) the predominantly white area of a town.

1974		N. Heard Cold Fire Burning 30: ‘I live over on Prospect Street—the heart of honkytown’.
1975		D. Goines Inner City Hoodlum 65: Honkietown is where all the motherfuckin’ white dudes stay.