hunker down

hunker down

1. Literally, to squat. The magician hunkered down to the eye level of the children.
2. To seek refuge in a particular place or area. We hunkered down at home with some movies while the blizzard raged all weekend.
3. To work or begin to work on something in a determined matter. I can't believe I didn't get an A on my project after I'd hunkered down all weekend to do it!
4. To stubbornly maintain some belief. It seems he's hunkered down and will never see me as anything but the villain in his life.
See also: down, hunker
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

hunker down (on something)

Fig. to squat down on one's heels, a stool, a stone, etc. Jeff hunkered down on the pavement and watched the world go by. He hunkered down to take a rest.
See also: down, hunker
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

hunker down

v.
1. To sit on the heels with the knees bent forward; squat: My personal trainer hunkered down to help me with the barbells.
2. To take shelter or refuge: The campers hunkered down in the cabin during the blizzard.
3. To hold stubbornly to some position: The candidates hunkered down and refused to admit their mistakes.
4. To apply oneself and start working seriously at something: You need to hunker down and study if you're going to pass that test.
See also: down, hunker
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • come a gutser
  • be down to (one)
  • be down to somebody/something
  • bear down on (someone or something)
  • be down to something
  • be down to (do something)
  • clamp down
  • clamp down on
  • clamp down on (someone or something)
  • chomp down on (someone or something)
References in periodicals archive
The modest dimensions let Pittman hunker down and almost suggested a sense of pictorial humility; such little pictures made one attentive, sensitizing and slowing one's response to the things that happen in them.
John Pittman. (Reviews: Chicago)
Rather than hunker down and wait for trouble, this system got ahead of the problem by sending letters offering free testing to all who had had the procedure to ensure they had not been adversely affected.
Achieving leadership presence in a post-enron world. (Leading Questions)
Target shooting means careful work; you don't just hunker down and let it fly.
Ready, aim, fire!
Announce a crisis in our institutionalized forms of leadership, and most of our neighbors would hasten to stock up on canned goods and hunker down in their basement dens.
The collapse of credibility. (Flip Side)
You can either watch each presentation unfold at random on large screens at the end of the gallery, or hunker down cross-legged and shoeless on tatami mats in front of a line of televisions.
Japanese home videos. (view)
We withdraw from action, postpone decisions, and generally hunker down until a renewed, more comprehensible basis for acting emerges.
Testimony of Federal Reserve Officials
To miss the mosquitoes, hunker down in the early evening.
Keeping Bugs at Bay
Our mission is not to hunker down in some musty cave to await the stroke of a deus ex machina to save us.
Building a culture of life
MENTION "COMPLIANCE" TO A HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATOR AND you'd better hunker down for an involved discussion of billing, liability, and related issues.
OIG vey!
Instead of heading straight back to their base with their detainees in a ground convoy, the 100-odd Rangers and Delta commandos were forced to hunker down around the first crash site, as Aidid's forces converged on them from across the city.
BLACK HAWK DOWN
* Moat Builders - These board members and managers believe the best strategy is a defensive one: hunker down and wait for the crisis to pass.
The human factor in board governance
What we don't seem to realize is that too often we respond to these attacks on the press in our usual way: we just hunker down and try to ignore them.
Free press under siege; berated in O.J. Simpson case
Actually, it sounds more like time to hunker down under the covers and try to sleep this one out.
A time to change
equities have stalled out in front of mid-term elections Tuesday as the markets hunker down in front of the potentially pivotal vote after some fresh volatility overseas.
U.S. equities have stalled out
And he warned it was too easy to hunker down when dealing with the problems facing Europe.
Clinton warns: Ulster will be 'whacked' if Brexit backed