Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun See
hanky-panky .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun colloq. Professional cant; the chatter of conjurers to divert attention from their tricks; hence, jugglery.
- noun Informal Illegal or unethical behavior, usually surreptitious.
- noun colloq. Extramarital sexual relations, especially adultery.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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It was I who added counters to his stakes, just once or twice, and not nearly as often as they said - why, I was quite shocked when I read in the papers last week, the kind of evidence they were giving, even Mrs Wilson - dear me, if there had been that much hankey-pankey with the counters the whole world must have seen, the Prince and everyone!
Watershed 2010
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Now Newton, Darwin, Dalton, Davy, Joule, and Adam Smith did not affect this “expert” hankey-pankey, becoming enough in a hairdresser or a fashionable physician, but indecent in a philosopher or a man of science.
A Modern Utopia Herbert George 2006
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It was I who added counters to his stakes, just once or twice, and not nearly as often as they said - why, I was quite shocked when I read in the papers last week, the kind of evidence they were giving, even Mrs Wilson - dear me, if there had been that much hankey-pankey with the counters the whole world must have seen, the Prince and everyone!
Flashman And The Tiger Fraser, George MacDonald, 1925- 1999
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You were watched all the time and if a girl danced too close to a man or a man danced too close to a girl or they saw any kind of hankey-pankey going on, don't think that they didn't come right in and make a scene about it!
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'By the Lord, I believe the Apostle's right, -- the whole place reeks to me of hankey-pankey, -- it did as soon as I put my nose inside.
The Beetle Richard Marsh
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Can it be possible that that humorous professor of hankey-pankey -- may all the maledictions of the accursed alight upon his head!
The Beetle Richard Marsh
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Only the mis-remembered hankey-pankey of the Dead Old Man.
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Davy, Joule, and Adam Smith did not affect this "expert" hankey-pankey, becoming enough in a hairdresser or a fashionable physician, but indecent in a philosopher or a man of science.
A Modern Utopia 1906
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Aubrey, that if father tries any hankey-pankey with the estate, and leaves it to me, I shall give it back to you next day. '
Elizabeth's Campaign Humphry Ward 1885
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So the real median income is adjusted for inflation, so there's no hankey-pankey with what a dollar can buy, OK?
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