Hanker

Podcast 1 · Introduction

Hanker

A documentary-style narration: origin, meaning, and feel.

Part of speech

verb

Pronunciation

HANK-uh  /ˈhæŋkə/

Definition

To feel a strong desire or yearning for something; to long for something that one cannot immediately have or that is out of reach.

Plain meaning

To hanker means to yearn for something — to have a persistent, often nostalgic longing for something you want but cannot easily have. You hanker after simpler times, after a lost love, after the thing just out of reach.

Register

Slightly informal, slightly literary. Hanker is not the most formal word for desire but it is not slangy. It is the word of memoirs and reflective essays — the adult who hankers after the summers of childhood, the emigrant who hankers for home. Hankering is more commonly used than the bare verb in British English — a hankering for, a hankering after.