Does the verb “to hanker” (as in, to hanker after something or have a hankering for something) come from the rhyming slang “Hank Marvin = Starvin’”?
I’ve not been able to find anywhere to confirm this.
Cheers,
– Quirm
Well, the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says the origin of the word hanker is “Perhaps from Dutch dialectal hankeren”, which in turn comes from the Indo-European root konk-, with the basic meaning “to hang” but which somehow picked up a secondary meaning “to long for” (“I’m just ‘hanging around’ wishing I had such-and-such”? I dunno.)