A honky tonk (also called a honkatonk, honkey-tonk, or tonk)'s a type of bar with musical entertainment that's common in the Southwestern and Southern United States. The term has also been attached to various styles of 20th-century American music. Derivation The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) states that the origin of the term honky tonk's unknown. The earliest source explaining the derivation of the term (spelled "honkatonk") was an article published in 1900 by the New York Sun and widely rep… (More on Honkytonk)