Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also hunkey) excellent, satisfactory, lucky, pleasurable, in good condition, ‘safe and sound’; occas. as adv.

1867		G.E. Clark Seven Years of a Sailor’s Life 20: She is a gay boat and hunkey in every strand.
1868		H.L. Williams Black-Eyed Beauty 36: ‘All hunky!’ said he.
1875		M. Thompson Hoosier Mosaics 119: You may jist bet I clung on though, and finally I got myself setting down on the steps and then I was all hunkey.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 5: Hunky - Am. term for good, jolly, as ‘a Hunky boy,’ a jovial fellow; ‘everything’s Hunky’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Jan. 14/4: Quite a crowd of horror-stricken citizens followed the revellers home in the hopes of seeing them drop dead, but as they are all alive and hunkey at the present date, it seems pretty clear that the recording angel must have gone to spend this Christmas with his friends.
1888		Texas Siftings 20 Oct. n.p.: Robert is all hunky, but he had a mighty close call the week before that [F&H].
1891		Dead Bird (Sydney) 24 Jan. 5/2: Oive ’ad a fairly hunky time / As Bill-posther in Gineral.
1896		Wallace Peck Story of a Train of Cars 19: This here railroadin’ ’s ’bout the hunkeyest thing I’ve run up against.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 5: hunky a. [Probably from honk, adopted in New York from Early Dutch settlers. From Dutch honk, post station, home (used esp. by boys at play for the goal or base)] All right; in good condition.
1902		W.N. Harben Abner Daniel 242: It’s all hunkey, an’ my opinion is that it’ll never be wuth less.
1907		C.E. Mulford Bar-20 ix: That was all hunky for a while, but every time he’d go out to irrigate, that female organ-wrastler would seem to call th’ music off for his special benefit.
1910		Sat. Eve. Post 16 July 15/3: I want to get hunky with the Sanitary boss [DA].
1913		E.L. Warnock ‘Terms of Approbation And Eulogy’ in DN IV:i 21: hunkey. Very fine, ‘tip-top,’ just the thing [...] ‘That’s just hunkey candy.’.
1920		Ade Hand-made Fables 129: Stereotyped Assurances to the perturbed Hostess that everything was Swell, Elegant, and Hunky.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 224: Yu’ve happened along just hunky, Judge.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 127: Guesthouse was another place they forgot the hot water when they put the plumbing in. Apart from that it was hunky.

2. (US) friendly, ingratiating.

1899		in S. Crane Dispatches 153: He began to get ‘hunky’ with all those people who had been plugging at him.
1906		J. London White Fang Ch. iv: He’s all hunky with the officials. The Gold Commissioner’s a special pal of his.