hunker down
"hunker-down" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“hunker down” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 11
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To take shelter; to prepare oneself for some eventuality; to focus on a task.
Corpus desk
Index EN-hunker-down · hunker down · English
hunker down · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 11 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "H" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | hunker down |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 11 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “hunker down” in English
Rare enough to double-check
hunker down is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
hunker down has no tracked misspelling variants, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is hunker down, spelled H-U-N-K-E-R- -D-O-W-N.
Definition
- 1To take shelter; to prepare oneself for some eventuality; to focus on a task.
- 2To stubbornly hold to a position.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how hunker down appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
That test is worth half your grade, so you'd better hunker down and start studying.
Imagine that you are in a storm; you would not shake your fists at the clouds and the rain and yell, “Stop it, stop it NOW! This is unacceptable.” You would hunker down for safety and wait until it passes.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.