Word.ws English Dictionary

hanks

hanks is the plural of hank.

Meaning of hank

Noun

hank (plural hanks)

  1. A coil or loop of something, especially twine, yarn, or rope.
    • […] the best thing of all to stop bleeding at the Nose, is to take a Hank of Coventry-blew thread, and hang it cross a stick, and set one end of it on fire […] and let him receive the smoak up his Nostrils […]1681, E.R., The Experienced Farrier, London, p. 307
  2. A ring or shackle that secures a staysail to its stay and allows the sail to glide smoothly up and down.
  3. (Ulster) Doubt, difficulty.
  4. (Ulster) Mess, tangle.
  5. A rope or withe for fastening a gate.
  6. (obsolete) Hold; influence.
    • Seldom doth a man fall into a Preſumptuous Sin, but vvhere the Devil hath got ſuch a hanke over him, […]1636 July (date delivered), Robert Sanderson, “[Ad Aulam.] Sermon IV. Beuvoyr, July 1636”, in XXXIV Sermons. […], 5th edition, London: […] [A. Clark] for A. Seil, and are to be sold by G. Sawbridge...

See all 11 meanings of hank

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Hanks

Hanks (countable and uncountable, plural Hankses)

  1. A surname originating as a patronymic.
  2. An unincorporated community in Williams County, North Dakota, United States.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Hanks

Hanks

  1. (plural) plural of Hank

Forms of hanks

pluralHankses
alternative formHankes

Origin of hanks

From Hank + -s. * (surname): From Hank + the patronymic suffix -s. * (plural): From Hank + the pluralization suffix -s.

Questions about hanks

What does hanks mean?
Hanks means a surname originating as a patronymic.
What is hanks the plural of?
Hanks is the plural of hank.
What part of speech is hanks?
Hanks is a proper noun.

Words near hanks in the dictionary

  1. Hankinson
  2. hanko
  3. hankos
  4. Hankou
  5. Hankow
  6. hanks
  7. hanksite
  8. hankty
  9. Hankul
  10. hanky
  11. hanky code

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hanks (page history and authors); Hanks (page history and authors); hank (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-hanks.wav.

Cite this entry: “hanks.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hanks. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.