Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) an immigrant from Eastern Europe; the root refs. suggesting Czech Republic (current version of ‘Bohemia’) and Hungary.

1891		Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) 7 June 12/7: Final Glee Club Concert. Quartette ‘Bohunkers’.
1899		Omaha Dly Bee (NE) 21 Aug. 2/4: There was a frolicsaome game of ball between the Junior Diamonds and the Bohunks.
1904		Kansas Agitator (Garnett, KS) 17 June 8/3: If you have any men who cannot afford to work for $1.25 per day, let them go, for there plenty of bohunks and dagoes anxious to work for that.
1910		Butte (MT) Eve. News 24 July 1: The bohunk miner is a low grade foreigner who buys his job from the foreman and pays him for keeping it [DA].
1918		‘Sapper’ Human Touch 188: I’ve forgotten more about cards than any of you damned bohunks ever knew.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 25: The interviewing official had a fan [...] a protection from the traditional garlicky breath of the bohunks.
1933		‘Paul Cain’ ‘One, Two, Three’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2006) 9: A half-hour of jabbering about spark plugs with the Bohunk in the Selwyn garage.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 709: The Polacks and the Bohunks [...] they just almost cleaned out the Irish.
1946		(con. 1910s) J. Thompson Heed the Thunder (1994) 41: All those bohunks and Poles and Rooshans are acting under direct orders from the Pope.
1958		(con. 1945) F. Davis Spearhead 118: Don’t stand there all day, bohunk.
1968		(con. mid–late 19C) S. Longstreet Wilder Shore 216: Assorted wogs, wops, dagos, bohunks, burr-heads, Fuzzy-Wuzzies, gooks, spiks.
1970		D. Ponicsan Last Detail 75: When I was a kid I knew guys who were real Bohemians, I mean in the Blood — Bohunks.
1977		Maledicta 1:2 134: Hunk and hunky, shortened from Hungarian, and blended with Bohemian to produce bohunk, may have begun as simple, derogatory ethnic terms for persons of eastern European origin; but they were soon transferred to the occupation typical of east Europeans in large American cities – ‘factory hand,’ with connotations of general obtuseness and stupidity.
1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 19: One such set of these name terms are pejoratives, those expressions that negatively characterize others [...] ethnically (polack, kike, bohunk).
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 296: He was born a big-dick bohunk [...] Mikhail Metrovich was his name.

2. (US, also bohunkus) an oafish, dull, if muscular person.

1883		D. Buel ‘Bohunkus’ in New Yale Song-Book (1918) 26: There were two boys that were two sons, [...] Bohunkus had his father’s smile, / Josephus had his grin.
1911		Wash. Post 10 Dec. 4/5: The ‘wop’ is a common labourer. The wop used to be the ‘bohunk,’ a sort of generic name for all laborers who had difficulty in speaking English.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 59: You goddam bohunk, you goddam insolent bastard.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 171: Shut up, you left-handed bohunk.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 10/2: Bohunk, a pick and shovel laborer.
1946		R.L. Bellem ‘Homicide Surprise’ in Speed Detective Feb. 🌐 I teed off on the big bohunk’s steeple; maced him to his knees.
1963		B. Hecht Gaily, Gaily 172: The arrogant bosses who bilked the workers and called for the state militia to shoot the bohunks down when they became too sassy.
1977		see sense 1.
1988		(con. 1940s) C. Bram Hold Tight (1990) 93: Bohunkus Americanus.
1995		J. Stahl Permanent Midnight 288: Some bohunk one notch up from a Will Work For Food-sign guy.
2021		T. Pluck Boy from County Hell 63: One of the doggies unzipped and the bohunk fell to his knees like he’d seen Jesus.

3. (US) a second-rate person.

1922		Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 18 June 32/1: Tye simple-minded bohunks [...] would o’ give her the tail end o’ their bankrolls then an’ there.
1929		W.R. Burnett Little Caesar (1932) 253: Bohunk, a poor specimen.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 243: She’s oney a bohawk anyway.

4. (US) a second-rate boxer.

1923

D. Runyon in Altoona Tribune (PA) 10 Apr. 13/1: ‘Palooka’ is a new word, much used lately, to describe what was formerly called a ‘hitout,’ a ‘set-up’, a ‘sucker,’ a ‘bohunk,’ a pushover. All of these words mean a very poor fighter.

5. (US) an East European language.

1936

K. Mackenzie Living Rough 117: His songs are sung in every language, in Bohunk, in Wop, in Chink, in Spick.

6. (US) as a term of address, the equivalent of ‘my boys’.

1917

‘Sapper’ No Man’s Land 235: Think of it, me bohunks.

7. (US campus) an attractive-looking man.

1993

Eble Campus Sl. Apr.

8. (US) attrib., muscular.

1966

H.S. Thompson letter 25 Dec. in Proud Highway (1997) 594: The bohunk defensive backs on other Air Force teams.