Yonks

Posted by TheFallen on September 17, 2002

In Reply to: Yonks posted by Linda Edwards on September 16, 2002

: Who knows where the word yonks comes from, as in I haven't see you for yonks??

Good question. My reputable reference sources simply state that it's 20th Century British slang of unknown origin, and I can't find anything official elsewhere either. The best theory I've found - which I rather like, because it's abstruse enough possibly to be true - is that it's a contraction of "yonkey's dears", itself a spoonerism of "donkey's years", again slang for a very long time. This is actually somewhat plausible - but it's simply a guess.