Definition of "hankering"

" […] You don't mean," Mr. Osborne continued, gathering wrath and astonishment as the thought now first came upon him; "you don't mean that he's such a d—— fool as to be still hankering after that swindling old bankrupt's daughter? […] "

1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 24, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848

One may say that hankering after naughty things is the very essence of the evil into which we have been precipitated by Adam's fall.

1860 January – 1861 April, Anthony Trollope, chapter 4, in Framley Parsonage. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published April 1861

[T]here is a clear sense that Britain is hankering for a change at the top.

2008 May 23, James Graff, “Lost: Labour's Love for Brown”, in Time

I found that he had dipped a little in chimerical studies and had a hankering after astrology and alchymy.

1840, Washington Irving, The Knight of Malta

Mike says he even likes to talk to him and run after him, but he has a hankering that Moore should be made an example of.

1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 1, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […]

But there was one yet - the biggest, the most blank, so to speak - that I had a hankering after.

1899 February, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number M, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], part I, page 197

"Some people are fond of a stay-at-home life, but I always had a hankering after adventures."

1904, W. W. Jacobs, chapter 2, in Dialstone Lane

“It looks wrong to me. But I have a hankering to work the thing out on my own. […] ”

1919, Christopher Morley, chapter VII, in The Haunted Bookshop‎, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, page 138

In other words, some species of human ancestor […] not only had a hankering for meat, which scientists had not expected, but used tools to get it.

2010 August 12, Michael D. Lemonick, “Study: Lucy's Relatives Used Tools to Butcher Meat”, in Time‎, archived from the original on 2012-09-13