honking adj. very large; whopping; as an intensifier or in an adverbial role, very. Editorial Note: It is unclear in the 1974 citation whether the cars had honking horns or were seen as large compared to the European automobiles. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Stunt performers in movies have their own jargon for talking about their dangerous work. In New York City, the slang term brick means “cold,” and dumb brick means “really cold.” Plus: the East and Central African tradition...
When he lived in Nova Scotia, Jeffrey from Montreal, Canada, noted that the word some was often used as an intensifier, as in That’s some good or She’s some pretty or She’s right some pretty. Also common in the dialects of...
I always assumed there was a connection to honker meaning ‘very large nose’. I see enough Googlehits for “big honkin(g) nose” to suggest that others have made the same connection.
Here’s another early automotive cite — since “(big) honking” is used in reference to engines, it’s unlikely that it has anything to do with honking horns.
Thanks, Ben. That last cite is great.
I acknowledge the fact that people make the connection to honker, but so far there’s no evidence that “honking” was first used to describe noses.
For fans of sci-fi and/or MacGuyver, “big honkin’ space-gun” was a term frequently used by former “Stargate SG-1” lead, Col. Jack O’Neill, played by Richard Dean Anderson.
Reference to honking. This was used to refer to the big bore engined cars which in racing trip would often actually shake the ground. So honking was being used by me as an adjative describing how awesome these cars were, especially compared to the small engined European cars.