A style of country music emphasizing traditional country instruments (e.g., guitar, steel guitar and fiddle); a rough, nasal vocal style; and tragic themes such as heartbreak, infidelity and alcoholism
(deyim) Originated by post WW II US Sailors on liberty in Yokosuka, Japan. The strip right outside the main gate to the US Naval Base was called (and still is) Honcho Dori (means book district street in Japanese). Times were wild and there was no better sailor port in the world at the time. This was bastardized to Honky Dory by the sailors and it came to mean if you came from Honky Dory then everything had to be good or 'honky dory'
Honky-tonk is the kind of piano music that was formerly played in honky-tonks. the beat of honky-tonk pianos. a cheap bar where country music is played (Probably from the sound of the music). honky-tonk music/piano a type of piano music which is played in a loud cheerful way
(noun.) 1967. Term of racial abuse attested 1967, most likely from hunky an African-American vernacular shortening of Hungarian. Sense of "factory hand" attested from 1946.