Anyone who has watched TV in the last week — especially yesterday or today — knows that there is a monster storm heading up the Atlantic coast, from D.C. to Maine. We are about to get slammed with as much as 36″ of the white stuff.
And almost all of us use the verb phrase “hunker down” when mentioning how we’ll cope, although I don’t know if we’ve ever thought of the actual definition of that word.
Did you? I didn’t, but I thought I would look it up today.
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary:
Hunker (intransitive verb):
1: to crouch, to squat — usually used with down
2: to settle in or dig in for a sustained period — used with down
Origin of Hunker
Probably akin to Middle Dutch hucken, huken; Middle Low German hōken; Old Norse hūka (all meaning “to squat”)
First known use: 1720
So now you know! Be safe, stay warm, and enjoy hunkering down.