hunky-dory [M19th] If everything is hunky-dory it is going well, with no problems. It is American, and comes from the old slang word hunky [M19th], meaning ‘all right, safe and sound’, from Dutch honk ‘home, base’: the reason for the dory is unknown. Hunky here has nothing to do with hunky [E20th] meaning ‘strong and fit’—this is from hunk [E19th], ‘chunk or lump’, which is probably also Dutch or perhaps German in origin. The modern use to describe a sexually attractive man dates from the 1970s and is originally American.