I’ve been asked a dozen times in the last two days if I’m hunkering down and my first thought was, of course I’m hunkering down, we are all sort of under house arrest and hunkering down is exactly what all of us are doing.
Thought number two: The word hunker is a weird word and I’ve never seen it used, except with the word down. Hunker down. You don’t hunker up or hunker sideways or well or poorly, you just hunker down.
Ever the curious soul, I looked up the definition of hunk:
1. something broken off from something else…like a hunk of bread or a hunk of cake
2. a large, strong, sexually attractive man
Therefore, a hunker would be someone breaking off a hunk of cake or enjoying a large, strong, sexually attractive man.
The thing is, I own a lot of gray hair, so the former is probably more realistic than the later, if I’m hunkering. I could hunker bread, but the other is as unlikely as my bungee jumping.
So then, I looked up hunkering…and I’m not. Hunkering means squatting. The next person who asks will hear…No, I’m hunkering up. My achy, aging knees allow me to squat, but probably not stand up so I’ll eliminate the middleman and stay standing.
