hunker

Plural: hunkers

Verb

Verb Forms: hunkered, hunkering, hunkers

To squat or crouch down low.
sit on one's heels
- "The children hunkered down to protect themselves from the sandstorm"
To crouch or squat close to the ground or lie down
To apply oneself to a task

Noun

A political conservative.

Examples

He would hunker down over the board, trying to visualize all possible Words With Friends plays.

Origin / Etymology

Originally Scottish. Origin uncertain, but probably of Germanic origin, perhaps *hunk- a nasalised variant of *huk- (compare Scots hoonk, hounk, variants of huk, hok (“to squat, crouch”); Scots hocker (“to crouch down, hunker”)), all of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse huka (“to crouch”), from Proto-Germanic *hūkan- (“to squat”), from *hūkkan-, back-formed from the iterative *huk(k)ōn-, from Proto-Indo-European *kuk-néh₂, from *kewk- (“to curve, bend”) (also the source of high).
Probable cognates include Old Norse húka, Dutch huiken, and German hocken.

Synonyms

crouch, hunker down, scrunch, scrunch up, squat, lie

Scrabble Score: 13

hunker: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Word
hunker: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
hunker: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 14

hunker: valid Words With Friends Word