Other forms: honking, honks, honked
To honk is to sound a car horn — that flat, blaring note aimed at the driver in front who has not noticed the lights change. One short honk means hello. A long one means something else.
It is the goose's word as well: a skein of geese honking overhead in October. As a noun it covers any blaring sound, including a thoroughly blown nose. In Britain people also say hoot or beep about a car, and honking in slang means enormous — a honking great lorry blocking the lane. Note that you honk AT someone: he honked at the cyclist and got a gesture back.
1verbhonkTo sound a horn, especially a car horn.
“The taxi driver honked at a van blocking the road.”
2verbgooseOf a goose, to make its loud nasal call.
“Geese honked as they came in low over the field.”
3nounshortA short, loud, blaring sound.
“A honk from the drive told her the taxi was waiting.”
honk is a loud sound.
Honk has no ancestor worth tracing: the word is the noise. English built it straight out of the sound, the way it built thud and beep, and then handed it to cars when cars turned up.
imitative of the sound.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, Sounds & Noises
First appears in chapter 27 of A Man Called Ove.
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