Hinky

//ˈhɪŋki// adj, slang

adj, slang ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Acting suspiciously; strange, unusual; acting in a manner as if having something to hide, or seemingly crooked. colloquial

    "I thought he might be acting hinky."

  2. 2
    Suspicious (of something). colloquial

    "I think they get hinky if everything is shaking around and they can't see much."

  3. 3
    Dishonest; sketchy; shady colloquial
  4. 4
    Weird; nonstandard. colloquial, derogatory

    "1968 Sept 21: Officer Pete Malloy, as written by Jack Webb, intuiting that a citizen’s report of burglars casing the neighborhood is probably legitimate, Adam-12, Season 1, Episode 1 at 9:32, http://www.imdb.com/rg/VIDEO_PLAY/LINK//video/hulu/vi4018208793/ This [call] shouldn’t be hinky – I’ve got a hunch they’re still floating around."

  5. 5
    Unreliable; wonky colloquial
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  1. 6
    Snobbish; haughty colloquial

Synonyms

All synonyms
aberrantalienbookycuriousdifferenteerie

Example

More examples

"I thought he might be acting hinky."

Etymology

Possibly from obsolete Scots hink, from Old Norse hinka (“to limp or hobble”), probably not from Old English inca (“doubt; suspicion”). Possibly from hank (“a loop or coil or anything that curbs or restrains”). Possibly from African-American usage: hincty or hinkty.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.