How to Use hankie in a Sentence

hankie

noun
  • Stealing Home is a two-hankie weeper, and a cheap one at that.
    — Tim Grierson, Vulture, 19 Feb. 2021
  • Be warned that Homebound is a three-hankie weeper.
    — Anupama Chopra, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Keep a couple of hankies handy, because the play will likely soften the flintiest hearts in the audience.
    — F. Kathleen Foley, latimes.com, 17 Apr. 2018
  • Parting Shot The Broncos have become masters of the two-hankie weepy.
    — Joe Nguyen, The Denver Post, 19 Nov. 2019
  • Far from signaling misery, crying can be a source of pleasure, as when people pay good money to read a tearjerker or watch a three-hankie movie.
    — Big Think, 23 Sep. 2025
  • Anyone offended by your costume can comfort themselves with a gin and tonic while wiping their tears with an Hermès hankie.
    — Alden Wicker, refinery29.com, 16 Oct. 2022
  • From the corner of his eye, Williams could see the umpire reaching for his yellow hankie before Dak could even round the corner on his scramble.
    — Dallas News, 3 Jan. 2022
  • Several questionable calls went against the Seahawks, who always seemed to slip on a zebra’s hankie during an uphill climb.
    — David J. Neal, miamiherald, 30 Jan. 2018
  • Sunglass cases, hankies, make-up bags, totes that hold tap shoes and batons, pocketbooks and key chains are all good candidates for our family markings.
    — Leslie Anne Tarabella, AL.com, 10 July 2017
  • Will this be a five-hankie tearjerker, or a Collateral Beauty–style calamity?
    — Nate Jones, Vulture, 5 Nov. 2021
  • Despite his relatively casual daily dress of bluejeans, collared shirt and dress shoes, Luke rarely left home without a hankie in his back pocket.
    — WSJ, 8 Mar. 2019
  • Bogar, who played quarterback for Morehouse College in Atlanta, obliged with the yellow hankie.
    — Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 2 Oct. 2022
  • Meanwhile, McCartney recalls requiring a hankie on first hearing his old partner-in-crime’s singing voice from beyond the grave.
    — Jon O'Brien, IndieWire, 26 Nov. 2025
  • President Barack Obama handed over a hankie during a funeral.
    — Adrienne So, Wired, 5 Mar. 2020
  • Handing over a dog-eared paperback to a friend, gushing about shocking plot twists over coffee, sharing a hankie over tearjerker endings – good stories are made better with sharing.
    — Barbara Vandenburgh, USA TODAY, 27 Sep. 2022
  • And ready your hankie for a moment between Lady Mary and the Dowager Countess that—no spoilers—shows off a softer side to the tough-as-nails matriarch.
    — Elizabeth Holmes, Town & Country, 16 Sep. 2019
  • Titanic remains a four-hankie crowd-pleaser par excellence, elevating a paper-thin love story to the scale of myth by placing it against the backdrop of incalculable human tragedy.
    — A.a. Dowd, Chron, 9 Feb. 2023
  • Spoiler Alert potentially has a shot at appeal beyond that niche, particularly with audiences starved for a genuinely moving, pleasingly old-fashioned four-hankie tearjerker whose sentiments are backed by lived experience.
    — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 28 Nov. 2022
  • The six-step kits, which retail from $48 to $52, each include the dye formula, a silk hankie, protective gloves, string, and a manual on shibori—the Japanese dyeing technique that produces those better-than-tie-dye patterns on fabric.
    — Zoë Sessums, Bon Appetit, 22 Feb. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hankie.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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