What does it mean when someone says hunky dory?

The earliest I found is in the 1866 book Tony Pastor's Waterfall Songster: A Splendid Collection of the Newest Comic Songs, Written and Sung by the Renowned Comic Vocalist, Tony Pastor, at his Celebrated Opera House, in a song called "Hunkydory":

It's the second song in the book after the eponymous "Waterfall Song", so perhaps it was a popular one.

Gary Martin of The Phrase Finder found the same song (with almost identical words and to the same tune) four years earlier:

It is American and the earliest example of it in print that I have found is from a collection of US songs, George Christy's Essence of Old Kentucky, 1862:

Hunkey Dorey

As sung by Christy's Minstrels.
Air - "Limerick Races"

One of the boys am I, That always am in clover; With spirits light and high, 'Tis well I'm known all over. I am always to be found, A singing in my glory; With your smiling faces round,

'Tis then I'm hunkey dorey.

Martin found some other 1866 quotations:

Not long afterward, in October 1866, the US magazine The Galaxy, seemed unclear why the phrase was used, which also indicates that it wasn't very long in the tooth at that date:

"I cannot conceive on any theory of etymology that I ever studied why anything that is 'hunkee doree', or 'hefty' or 'kindy dusty' should be so admirable."

That citation does at least suggest that 'hunky-dory' was in common enough use in 1866 for the author not to see fit to explain its meaning, although it's a pity 'hefty' and 'kindy dusty' weren't explained as these have now disappeared from the language. It seems that The Galaxy writer had been perplexed by the recent popularity of the the expression, which appears in several publications in 1866; for example, The Galveston Daily News, June 1866, had this piece of advice:

In the morning wash with Castile soap, in soft rain water, and you are all "Hunky-dore" - as fresh as a lily - as sweet as a pink.

I found some 1880s snippets that offer explanations. First, Library of Universal Knowledge, Volume 1 (1880):

Hunk, a large piece; "all hunky," all right; also "hunky dory."

Hunky dory isn't in the OED, but this US slang meaning of the hunky is, the noun dating from 1861 ("he was ‘a hunkey boy’"), with similar hunk from 1856 "Now he felt himself all hunk").

Second and less believable, Cruise of the revenue steamer Corwin in Alaska and the N. W. Arctic ocean in 1881 ...: Notes and memoranda ... (1883):

Persons fond of tracing resemblances may find in "Ignik" (fire) a similarity to the Latin ignis or the English "ignite," and from " Un-gi-doo-ruk" (big, huge) the transition down to " hunky-dory" is easy.

There's no agreed derivation of the expression 'hunky-dory'. It is American and the earliest example of it in print that I have found is from a collection of US songs, George Christy's Essence of Old Kentucky, 1862:

Hunkey Dorey

As sung by Christy's Minstrels.
Air - "Limerick Races"

One of the boys am I,That always am in clover;With spirits light and high,'Tis well I'm known all over.I am always to be found,A singing in my glory;With your smiling faces round,

'Tis then I'm hunkey dorey.

Not long afterward, in October 1866, the US magazine The Galaxy, seemed unclear why the phrase was used, which also indicates that it wasn't very long in the tooth at that date:

"I cannot conceive on any theory of etymology that I ever studied why anything that is 'hunkee doree', or 'hefty' or 'kindy dusty' should be so admirable."

That citation does at least suggest that 'hunky-dory' was in common enough use in 1866 for the author not to see fit to explain its meaning. It seems that The Galaxy writer had been perplexed by the recent popularity of the the expression, which appears in several publications in 1866; for example, The Galveston Daily News, June 1866, had this piece of advice:

In the morning wash with Castile soap, in soft rain water, and you are all "Hunky-dore" - as fresh as a lily - as sweet as a pink.

We do know that 'hunky-dory' wasn't conjured from nowhere but was preceded by earlier words, that is, 'hunkey', meaning 'fit and healthy' and 'hunkum-bunkum', which had the same meaning as 'hunky-dory'. 'Hunkey' was in use in the USA by 1861, when it was used in the title of the Civil War song A Hunkey Boy Is Yankee Doodle. 'Hunkum-bunkum' is first recorded in the US sporting newspaper The Spirit of The Times, November 1842:

"Everything was hunkum-bunkum for immediate flight."

It's clear that the 'hunky' part of 'hunky-dory' is from the above usages. What isn't clear is how 'dory' came to be added.

Hunkidori. Superlatively good. Said to be a word introduced by Japanese Tommy and to be (or to be derived from) the name of a street, or bazaar, in Yeddo [a.k.a. Tokyo].

Japanese Tommy was the stage name of the variety performer Thomas Dilward, popular in the USA in the 1860s - and conspicuously not Japanese. Dilward was a black dwarf before cosmologists ever thought of the term.

There is no direct evidence to support Bartlett's supposition. It is highly unlikely that Thomas Dilward ever visited Japan, but he may have popularised the expression which he could have picked up from those who had. Commodore Matthew Perry had opened up trade with the country in the 1850s and there were frequent voyages between the US and Japan by to the 1860s.

The Japanese term 'honcho-dori' means something like 'main street' and many cities there have one. US sailors would have known the word 'hunky' and could have added the Japanese word for road ('dori') as an allusion to the 'easy street' they found themselves in in Japan. There certainly were 'honcho-dori' streets of easy virtue in Tokyo and Yokohama that catered for the age-old requirements of sailors in port after a long voyage.

As I said at the outset, we can't be sure.

See other phrases that were coined in the USA.

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