hunk
/hʌŋk/noun
hunk is spelled H-U-N-K: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 24,745th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, hunk means “A large or dense piece of something” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of hunk is hunks.
How many letters and syllables are in hunk?
| Letters | 4: H-U-N-K |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.3 times per million words; the 24,745th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is hunk?
Hunk appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 24,745th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce hunk?
- US /hʌŋk/
Hunk has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-hunk.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with hunk?
8 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as hunk from its last stressed vowel (/ʌŋk/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of hunk
- hunks plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hunk mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A large or dense piece of something.
a hunk of metal
- 2
informalAn attractive man, especially one who is muscular.
- 3
A record of differences between almost contiguous portions of two files (or other sources of information). Differences that are widely separated by areas which are identical in both files would not be part of a single hunk. Differences that are separated by small regions which are identical in both files may comprise a single hunk. Patches are made up of hunks.
- 4
USslangA honyock.
- 5
A material object considered purely as extended stuff without identity criteria.
- 6
USA goal or base in children's games.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hunk in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | morceau , bellâtre |
| German | Stück , Prachtkerl |
| Portuguese | naco, pedaço , pedaço de mau caminho |
| Spanish | pedazo , macizo, galán, churro, mijito rico, guapetón |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does hunk come from?
Probably borrowed from West Flemish hunke (“hunk; chunk”), of obscure origin. Probably from an earlier *humke, *humpke, a diminutive related to Dutch homp (“hunk; lump”), English hump, equivalent to hump + -kin. The sense of an attractive man is recorded in Australian slang in 1941, in jive talk in 1945.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).