wankery

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noun

Unnecessary or pretentious noodling (messing around).

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Meanings

nounwankery (uncountable)
  1. CommonwealthIrelandUKslanguncountablevulgarUnnecessary or pretentious noodling (messing around).

    Their visas entailed bribes and a certain amount of bureaucratic wankery, but were approved quickly enough.

    2003, Marshall Moore, The Concrete Sky
    3 more examples

    The core band, meanwhile, had clearly honed their chops well on stage; Ashton's lead guitar work avoids both wankery and simplicity […]

    2002, Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock

    There are moments of static beauty, haunting sparseness, and pointless wankery, sometimes all in the same tune.

    2003, Jim DeRogatis, Turn on Your Mind: Four Decades of Great Psychedelic Rock

    Sub Pop was different, they were arty and more into darker, weirder stuff like Big Black. K was pretty much the opposite of that kind of macho wankery.

    2007, Everett True, Nirvana: The Biography

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see
wank

Origin

From wank + -ery.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

wankery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wankery

MLA

“wankery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wankery. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wankery,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wankery.

Source: wankery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.