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Hook

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hook¹

  • /hʊk/ Australia, US, New Zealand, UK
  • /hɵk/ British, Southern, Standard
  • /huːk/
  • /hʉk/ Northern Ireland, Scotland

Rhymes with -ʊk

Where it comes from

From Middle English hoke, from Old English hōc (“angle, point, hook”), from Proto-West Germanic *hōk, from Proto-Germanic *hōkaz, variant of *hakô (“hook”), probably ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kog-, *keg-, *keng- (“peg, hook, claw”).

Cognates

Cognate with Scots huke, huik (“hook”), West Frisian and Dutch hoek (“hook, angle, corner”), Low German Hook, Huuk, German Hook (“small cluster of farms”), Faroese høkja (“crutch”), Icelandic hækja (“crutch”), Norn hek (“crutch”), Finnish kuokka (“hoe, mattock”). Related to hake.

noun hooks

  1. A rod bent into a curved shape, typically with one end free and the other end secured to a rope or other attachment. "If I were a pirate and lost my hand, I would ask them to replace it with a computer mouse rather than a hook. I use a computer mouse all day, and I only use a hook three to five times a day."¶ -Emma Stone¶ On hooks
  2. A barbed metal hook used for fishing; a fishhook.
  3. Any of various hook-shaped agricultural implements such as a billhook. Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep, / Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook / Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers: [...]
  4. The curved needle used in the art of crochet.
  5. The part of a hinge which is fixed to a post, and on which a door or gate hangs and turns.
  6. A loop shaped like a hook under certain written letters, for example, g and j.
  7. A tie-in to a current event or trend that makes a news story or editorial relevant and timely.
  8. A snare; a trap. A shop of all the qualities, that man Loues woman for, besides that hooke of Wiuing,
  9. An advantageous hold. “What makes you so sure that nobody knows you've got a hook into him?” Ward asked.
  10. in plural The projecting points of the thighbones of cattle; called also hook bones.
  11. informal Removal or expulsion from a group or activity. He is not handling this job, so we're giving him the hook.
  12. A field sown two years in succession.
  13. informal A grasp (of), an attachment (to). Much of the Two in Twenty humor is insider stuff; this soap is clearly made for lesbians who have been around the city block, with a few road trips to Michigan. Gay men may love it as well, and others with a hook into contemporary urban dyke life.
  14. A brief, punchy opening statement intended to get attention from an audience, reader, or viewer, and make them want to continue to listen to a speech, read a book, or watch a play.
  15. A gimmick or element of a creative work intended to be attention-grabbing for the audience; a compelling idea for a story that will be sure to attract people's attention. The hook of Good Boys, Hollywood's latest odyssey of comic adolescent mischief, is that the kids behaving badly are, for once, truly kids.
  16. slang A finesse.
  17. slang A jack (the playing card).
  18. A sharp bend or angle in the course or length of an object (e.g. a bend in a river, etc.).
  19. A spit or narrow cape of sand or gravel turned landward at the outer end, such as Sandy Hook in New Jersey.
  20. A catchy musical phrase which forms the basis of a popular song. The song's hook snared me.
  21. informal A ship's anchor.
  22. Part of a system's operation that can be intercepted to change or augment its behaviour. We've added hooks to allow undefined message types to be handled with custom code.
  23. An instance of playing a word perpendicular to a word already on the board, adding a letter to the start or the end of the word to form a new word. Setup plays can also be made when you do not have the needed letter but believe your opponent doesn't know the hook owing to its obscurity.
  24. A diacritical mark shaped like the upper part of a question mark, as in ỏ.
  25. rare A háček. Common diacritics in Slavonic language are the hook ˇ (as in haček – Czech for ‘hook’) and the stroke ´ (robić – Polish for ‘do/make’).
  26. A curveball. He threw a hook in the dirt.
  27. a basketball shot in which the offensive player, usually turned perpendicular to the basket, gently throws the ball with a sweeping motion of his arm in an upward arc with a follow-through which ends over his head. Also called hook shot.
  28. A ball that is rolled in a curved line. However, for pins on the bowler's right, such as the 3, 6, 9, or 10, move more toward the center of the foul line if you bowl a straight ball or slightly to the left of the center of the foul line if you bowl a hook.
  29. a type of punch delivered with the arm rigid and partially bent and the fist travelling nearly horizontally mesially along an arc The heavyweight delivered a few powerful hooks that staggered his opponent.
  30. A type of shot played by swinging the bat in a horizontal arc, hitting the ball high in the air to the leg side, often played to balls which bounce around head height.
  31. A golf shot that (for the right-handed player) curves unintentionally to the left. (See draw, slice, fade.)
  32. The amount of spin placed on a bowling ball.
  33. Australia, Canada Any of the chevrons denoting rank.
  34. slang A prostitute. I was talkin' to a couple of the 'hooks' (female prostitutes) I know.
  35. UK, obsolete, slang A pickpocket. He preceded me to Dartmoor, where I found his fame even more loudly trumpeted than ever, especially by Manchester “hooks” (pickpockets), who boast of being the rivals of the “Cocks,” or Londoners, in the art of obtaining other people's property without paying for it.
  36. Synonym of shoulder (“the part of a wave that has not yet broken”). This maneuver involves a sharp turn, back into the hook of the wave.
  37. historical A knee-shaped wooden join connecting the keel to the stem (post forming the frontmost part of the bow) or the sternpost in cog-like vessels or similar vessels.

verb hooks · hooking · hooked

  1. transitive To attach a hook to. Hook the bag here, and the conveyor will carry it away.
  2. intransitive To become attached, as by a hook. The utensil holder hooks onto the side of the dishrack.
  3. transitive To catch with a hook (hook a fish). He hooked a snake accidentally, and was so scared he dropped his rod into the water.
  4. transitive To work yarn into a fabric using a hook; to crochet. No one seems to want anything but hooked mats now.
  5. transitive To insert in a curved way reminiscent of a hook. He hooked his fingers through his belt loops.
  6. transitive To ensnare or obligate someone, as if with a hook. She's only here to try to hook a husband.
  7. UK, US, archaic, slang To steal.
  8. transitive To connect (hook into, hook together). If you hook your network cable into the jack, you'll be on the network.
  9. To make addicted; to captivate. He had gotten hooked on cigarettes in his youth.
  10. To acquire as a spouse. People talk about so and so getting married and they always comment about the class or potential class status of the person this woman had "hooked." You know, "He comes from a working class background but he's studying to be a lawyer and she's going to be all set."
  11. To play a hook shot. "Hey, Sara! Watch this hook shot!" he shouted as he hooked the ball right through the net—swish!
  12. To succeed in heeling the ball back out of a scrum (used particularly of the team's designated hooker).
  13. To use the hockey stick to trip or block another player The opposing team's forward hooked me, but the referee didn't see it, so no penalty.
  14. To swerve a ball; kick or throw a ball so it swerves or bends. The Reds carved the first opening of the second period as Glen Johnson's pull-back found David Ngog but the Frenchman hooked wide from six yards.
  15. intransitive, slang To engage in prostitution. I had a cheap flat in the bad part of town, and I could watch the working girls hooking from my bedroom window.
  16. To play a word perpendicular to another word by adding a single letter to the existing word.
  17. slang To finesse.
  18. transitive To seize or pierce with the points of the horns, as cattle in attacking enemies; to gore.
  19. intransitive To bend; to be curved. 10 mins later, at the point where the road hooks sharp to the left, continue straight on through the wood along a mule track […]
  20. intransitive To move or go with a sudden turn.
  21. slang To play hooky; to skip school or a class They hooked English, sneaking out behind the school and smoking cigarettes.

Hook²

Where it comes from

* As an English surname, from the noun hook.

* As a Swedish surname, from hök (“hawk”).

* As a Dutch surname, Americanized from Hoek; compare Vanhook.

proper noun Hooks

  1. countable, uncountable A surname.
  2. countable, uncountable A hamlet in Wimblington parish, Fenland district, Cambridgeshire (OS grid ref TF4293).
  3. countable, uncountable A hamlet in Chardstock parish, East Devon district, Devon, England (OS grid ref ST3005).
  4. countable, uncountable A village and civil parish near Goole, East Riding of Yorkshire, England (OS grid ref SE7625).
  5. countable, uncountable A suburb in the borough of Kingston upon Thames, Greater London, England (OS grid ref TQ1865).
  6. countable, uncountable A large village and civil parish in Hart district, Hampshire, England (OS grid ref SU7254).
  7. countable, uncountable A hamlet in Fareham borough, Hampshire, England (OS grid ref SU5005).
  8. countable, uncountable A hamlet in Timsbury parish, Bath and North East Somerset district, Somerset (OS grid ref ST6758).
  9. countable, uncountable A village in Lydiard Tregoze parish, near Wootton Bassett, Wiltshire, England (OS grid ref SU0784).
  10. countable, uncountable A village and community in Pembrokeshire, Wales (OS grid ref SM9711).
  11. countable, uncountable A rural locality in South Canterbury, Canterbury, New Zealand, on the Hook River.

noun Hooks

  1. alternative Alternative form of Hoek (“member of Dutch faction”)Hoek

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