hook v.1
1. UK Und. uses, in senses of using a lit. or fig. hook.
(a) to steal, to pilfer, esp. by cutting a hole in a shop window and ‘fishing’ for its contents with a hook on a string.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Albumazar III iii: Is not this brauer then sneake all night in danger, Picking of lockes, or hooking cloathes at windowes? |
(b) to steal, to rob; to pick a pocket; thus hooked adj., stolen.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | The Jolly Beggars in Works (1842) 11/2: For monie a pursie she had hooked. | |
 | Camden Commercial Courier (SC) 24 June 3/1: ‘I told Paul all about ketching you in that ere nasty trick; about hookin that ere Poetry last week’. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Peter Ploddy and Other Oddities 163: I know’d he’d hook your money! | |
| Paved with Gold 69: S’elp me! if a mauley like that there ain’t worth a jemmy a day to a kenobe at wiring. Why, they’re just made for hooking a fogle out of a clye. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Brisbane Courier (Qld) 5 Feb. 4/5: ‘To hook’ is to steal, and here again the gravity of the crime is glozed over by the fantastic synonym. | |
| Night Side of N.Y. 38: He has already suffered the loss of his pocket-book [...] which was ‘hooked’ from him by some small thief. | |
| Old Hunks in Darkey Drama 5 44: Buy? ha, ha! Hook it more like, when de hen ain’t lookin’. | |
| (con. c.1840) Huckleberry Finn 336: You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that yaller girl’s frock. | |
| Leaves from a Prison Diary I 114: It was quite easy to fix the attention of the victim by pointing out the excellencies of a picture or statue with one hand, while ‘hooking’ with the other. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 5 May 5/6: Carrie Asprey and Lizzie were all ‘hooking’ (slang for pocket-picking). | |
| Tom Sawyer, Detective 31: When he wasn’t looking I hooked it [i.e. a screwdriver]. | |
| Little Citizens 204: I know where we can hook a banana. And the Ginney’s asleep. | |
| ‘Two Battlers and a Bear’ in Lone Hand (Sydney) Sept. 553/2: ‘She’s hooked our bit iv savngs ‘n’ all yesterday’s takin’s’. | |
| Truth (Melbourne) 17 Jan. 10/4: [headline] Skvarehead’s Splosh. Hayes Charged With Hooking Hahn’s Hoot. | |
| ‘Pics’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 267: Throw a fit, and while the charitable lady runs to get you a glass of water, hook the photo. | |
| ‘Perfect Crime’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2007) 353: She left a ten dollar bill on the bureau in her bedroom. Someone hooked it. | |
| Bits of New York Life 8 Nov. [synd. col.] The hooked towels in hotels in a month if stretched end to end would reach from New York to Chicago. | |
| Limey 220: He showed her a letter he’d hooked from her room. | |
| Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 5: Hooking: Picking pockets. | |
| Man with the Golden Arm 171: I never let the same guy hook me twice. | |
| Parole Chief 244: Half the time they don’t even know [...] whether they’ve been hooked or just spent the dough. | |
| Midnight Cowboy (1968) 155: While you was buying the underwear, I could have hooked the socks. | |
| Digger’s Game (1981) 136: I’m going back and hook the Vette. |
2. in senses of SE hook, to ensnare.
(a) to fool, to practise a confidence trick upon, to swindle.
| Country Spy 40: Having thus hooked the Chub, I said [...] I desire no Recompense [HDAS]. | |
| Sporting Mag. Sept. VIII 316/2: He never did a favour that proved barren to his own design [...] All his kindnesses are artificial flies! if nothing is caught they are pocketed again. ‘Hook him or hang him,’ is a favourite maxim. | |
| Comic Almanack Apr. 223: None of your gammon; you’re not going to hook me. | |
| N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 12 Oct. 6/1: Eva Morton’s recipe for hooking flats is played out. | |
| Dick Temple I 199: I [...] have been hooking the flats as easy as ketching tittle-brats. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 2 Jan. 4/1: What puazzled me was, who the spielers expected to ‘hook’ in the crowd of sharks that were making for this tricky trysting place. | |
| Confessions of a Con Man 40: The grafters hook some rich, old, country sport. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 16 July 36/3: To each and every flathead who has been ‘hooked’ a cunningly worded epistle is despatched, stating that the recipient has been selected on account of some special qualification or other[...]. And here the mugs fall in. | |
| Two & Three 10 Jan. [synd. col.] A boxing bug gets taken for a long walk and pays double fare the the privilege. He gets hooked six or seven times with the same bait and never gets a nibble. | |
| Let Tomorrow Come 33: He’d hook his mother, that guy! | |
| Brain Guy (1937) 60: If they aren’t friends of yours we can hook them. | |
| ‘There’s Hicks In All Trades’ in All Sports Feb. 🌐 He has hooked the natives for all the dough that he will need for some time. | |
| et al. DAUL 100/2: Hook, v. [...] 2. To swindle; to trick. | |
| in Heller In This Corner (1974) 26: They thought I’d be hooked and sign some cockeyed contract that might not protect me at all. | |
| Tattoo of a Naked Lady 6: Once I’ve hooked a live one into thinking he can take me for a ride, that’s when I nail him. |
(b) (US) to arrest, to catch in a crime.
| Hist. of the remarkable Life of John Sheppard 54: I thought once of taking the Windsor Coach for my self John Sheppard, by the Name of Crook – but fearing to be Hook’d in before my Journey’s End, I stept into Hedge-Lane. | |
| Pierce Egan’s Life in London 19 Dec. 374/2: ‘D—n it, if you think I took them from the fool, why don’t you hook me at once, without any, more bother!’. | |
| ‘The Righteous Peeler’ in James Catnach (1878) 210: Housebreakers, too, I hook, / And with ’em I makes slaughter. | |
| Biglow Papers 1st ser. 1: The sarjunt he thout Hosea hedn’t gut his i teeth cut [...] so he cal’lated to hook him in, but Hosy woodn’t take none o’ his sarse. | |
| Truth (Brisbane) 19 Oct. 3/2: One of [the girls] had been hooked and sent to the Repormatory. | |
| ‘Zigzags of Treachery’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 115: The average suspect tries to talk himself out of being arrested [but] if he’ll talk to you, and you play your cards right, you can hook him. | |
| This Gutter Life 285: One o’ the ugliest bogeys from the Yard has got his gig-lamps on me! If I don’t hike – I’m hooked. | |
| Lady in the Lake (1952) 165: It could be coincidence that George Talley was hooked for drunk-driving just when he was working on it [i.e a criminal case]. | |
| et al. DAUL 100/2: Hook, v. [...] 3. To arrest, with conviction almost certain. | |
| Howard Street 239: We don’t want to hook you with something you didn’t do. | |
| Cogan’s Trade (1975) 43: Then I got hooked and they try me. | |
| Rat on Fire (1982) 9: Clinker didn’t last long. I’ll say that for him. [...] How long was he on the street, he got hooked gain? A week? | |
| (con. 1963) November Road 30: If the cops hooked Carlos’s sharpshooter and connected him to the Eldorado [etc]. |
(c) to attract, esp. into marriage.
| ‘All England Are Slanging It’ Universal Songster I 40/1: Young ladies [...] with their ogles flash away, / In hopes to hook some nob. | |
| N.Y. in Slices 78: Here [...] he allows himself to be importuned by ‘cotton’ mothers and fascinated by irresistible young Iadies. [...] Were there but one, he would be hooked in a fortnight – he is so good-natured. | |
| in House Scraps (1887) 24: They tried to hook him, but the plot miscarried. | |
![[Ind]](/static/img/flags/ind.png "India") | Hills & Plains I 163: ‘She has hooked him, of course. He has just left’. | |
| Adventures of Philip (1899) 356: Some hanged adventurer, thinking you were to get money from me, has hooked you for his daughter, has he? | |
| Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 303: This young Irish Don Juan was continually in love with some girl or another, until at last Mary MacDonald hooked him. | |
| ‘’Arry on Marriage’ in Punch 29 Sept. 156/1: You’ve ’eard ’Arry was ’ooked after all, and engaged to old Suddlewig’s gal? | |
| ‘The Story of the Gadbsys’ in Soldiers Three (1907) 132: Gaddy’s hooked at last! | |
| ‘Corinna’s Courage’ Sporting Times 3 Nov. 1/4: That’s how Corinna hooked him for her husband, don’cherknow. | |
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 23 Jan. 3/6: It’s a story of a gell, as / In a fortune teller’s drum, / Hooked a parson. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 1 Feb. 12/4: They Say [...] That Ernie C. does not like being called a womanhater. You ought to hook a tart, Ern. | |
| [perf. Mark Sheridan] ‘Colonel Knut’ 🎵 One young widow tried to hook him when he went to Leeds. | |
| Indoor Sports 28 Aug. [synd. cartoon] Hello Mr Watts. Waitin’ for Norma? Pop says she hooked you fine. Did it hurt much? | |
| Bits of New York Life 4 Dec. [synd. col.] What is more, she hooked a ‘live one.’. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Ulysses 122: Daughter engaged to that chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. | |
| (con. WWI) Flesh in Armour 16: He had never been able to hook a girl easily. | |
| Wide Boys Never Work (1938) 61: In this rain, and with the blister I got on me heel, I couldn’t hook a drunk Welshman. | |
| (con. early 1930s) Harlem Glory (1990) 87: I nevah seen any colored people more African than you all. I don’t know how come I got mahself hooked by one. | |
| Jimmy Brockett 55: Strike me pink, what comes over some blokes when a sheila hooks them? | |
| letter 4 Aug. in Groucho Letters (1967) 50: Women always seem so much more joyous than men when another schlepper gets hooked. | |
| Howard Street 64: I ain’t thinkin’ about that tramp. Don’t no broad hook me. | |
| ‘The Second Time Around’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] I remember the last time she hooked him. | |
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 60: It isn’t easy when you measure just over five feet in your Packards to work up the gristle to even front a charlie let alone hook one. |
(d) (US) to subject to a fake ‘abduction’.
| N.Y. Sporting Whip 25 Feb. n.p.: Mr Miller, ‘the man what hooked his own wife,’ and Mrs Miller. ‘the woman what was “abducted” by her husband’. |
(e) to attract, to catch the eye of.
| Bushranger’s Sweetheart 199: She had managed to hook her sea-captain. | |
| Islanders (1933) 100: When ye find women hookin’ men they never were given any licence to mix with, down the public street ... | |
| Walk on the Wild Side 60: He didn’t want to lose a rookie, but he didn’t want to hook a lemon. | |
| Pimp 134: I saw her round black ass hook a white trick in a black Hog. | |
| Dear ‘Herm’ 147: His advertising is what hooks people: ‘Buy Your Car from Carmichael!’. | |
| Hooked on You [blues lyrics] I’m goin’ hooked on you / Hooked on you. | |
| Iced 129: Nodding to and hooking all the pussy we could bag. |
(f) to (over)charge.
| in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 45: Tell him what the taxi man hooked you for. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 201: If you get a hold of some cat that is strung out and you can hook him for more on a bag, the difference is yours. |
(g) (drugs) to make someone addicted to drugs.
| AS IV:1 20: My observations have led me to believe that the drug addict is ‘hooked’ by ‘dope’ talk as well as by the ‘dope’ itself. | |
| Man with the Golden Arm 165: I seen the way he hooked a couple of them [...] kids onto the needle. | |
| et al. DAUL 100/2: Hook, v. 1. To make a narcotic addict of. | |
| (con. 1950s) Man Walking On Eggshells 167: She hooked him, she had him snakebit. | |
| S.R.O. (1998) 146: If some overzealous junky should succeed in hooking a born square, the square will eventually kick the habit cold turkey. | |
| (con. WWII) Hollywoodland (1981) 106: They wouldn’t have let Horse loose in the Barrio, hooking young kids. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 608: Me bossman. I run Can Lao. We share lab space. I no hook GIs. | |
| Price You Pay 12: [T]heir dealer, the scumbag who figured out he could hook a whole industry. |
(h) (US black) to cost.
| Pimp’s Rap 141: The coat hooked (cost) me for $425.00. |
3. (also hook it) in senses of SE hook, move with a sudden twist or turn.
(a) to run off, to escape.
| ‘The Yankee’s Return From Camp’ in Songs of Independence (1973) 78: It scared me so I hooked it off. | |
| ‘A Rum-Un to Look At’ in Libertine’s Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) I 136: Her charms folks may hook at, / She’s a rum-un to look at. | |
| ‘The Man About Town’ in Nobby Songster 22: So I hooked it to my poll, who received me with open arms. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 61: Hook it, you gonniff, cross kid – hook it scarper, speel! | |
| Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 3/1: Proposals for a New Slang Dictionary [...] ABSQUATULATE.—Originally written Absquostatulate. Verb neuter: To clear, to vamos, to mizzle, to cut one's stick, to hook it, to slide, to bolt to break out, etc. | |
| Tales of College Life 28: Hook it! the Peeler’s a-coming! | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 May 3/3: [He] ordered Jones to produce evidence of good character before he was discharged; which being done, Jones ‘hooked it‘. | |
| Ravenshoe II 163: They all begins to get a bit noisy and want to fight, and so I hooked it. | |
| Lays of Ind (1905) 166: He hooked it to the woods. | |
| Five Years’ Penal Servitude 246: When one or other of us gets tired we can hook it. | |
| Newcastle Courant 16 Sept. 6/5: We’ll have to hook the shlowery and cushion; we’ll have to go by the first train. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 4 Apr. 22/1: The reverend gentleman was very much cut up, indeed, when he heard that his better half had hooked it. The lady […] was very prepossessing, and had many warm admirers. The churchwarden, though, was the favourite bantam. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) VI 1240: Now hook it smart you bitch. | |
| ‘The Solid Muldoon’ in Soldiers Three (1907) 53: He’s been hookin’ out av Purgathory to kape company wid Mrs. Bragin ivry evenin’ for the last fortnight. | |
| [perf. Marie Lloyd] Don’t Laugh 🎵 But eat your dinner, peas and lamb / And lovely tarts of strawberry jam / [...] / Then hook it! | |
| Truth (Sydney) 4 Mar. 1/3: And yet two British legions, sent to rook it, / Were forced, by half-armed savages, to hook it. | |
| Sporting Times 1 Apr. 1/2: The noble fellow grinned when he saw that he had sinned, / And ‘hooked it’. | |
| Gem 16 Sept. 12: ‘Better hook it!’ muttered Melchior. | |
| Secret Adversary (1955) 91: ‘Mrs Vandermeyer is trying to hook it’. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Truth (Wellington) 14 July 5/4: The other joker, not having a police record as a spieler and guesser [...] was told to hook it. | |
| Age Of Consent 85: I made up my mind then and there I’d hook it out of town that very night. | |
| Tarry Flynn (1965) 207: ‘Hook it, now,’ said the priest. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 213: Hook it, make yourself scarce. | |
| Billy Bunter at Butlins 39: ‘Hook it!’ grunted Johnny Bull. |
(b) (also do a hook) to go about one’s own business.
| Sam Sly 28 Apr. 3/1: We advise the beauty of Ship-street, Mrs. D—es, to be rather more circumspect in her conduct[...] it is high time you either reformed or hooked it. | |
| (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor (1968) I 25/2: Aye! that’s the way the harristocrats hooks it. There’s nothing o’ that sort among us. | |
| Sportsman (London) 5 Nov. 4/1: At various interesting parts of the Professor’s speech, the occupant of the ventilator interpolated, ‘Where are you now?’ ‘Hook it, my boy—that won’t do’ [...] and other ‘clever things’. | |
| Eve. News (Sydney) 27 Apr. 7/3: I got a large number of purses; but there was so little in them that I thought it better to ‘hook it,’ and to turn my hand to something more lucrative. | |
| Blackbirding In The South Pacific 42: Can’t you see I am sleeping? And I want more; so hook it. | |
| Hooligan Nights 43: The inspector told me I could ’ook it. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Nov. 44/1: I stays there a week while they fixes me thinker up, an’ then they fires me. Sez they: ‘We can’t keep a cove till the end of his little finger grows again; so ’ook it.’. | |
| Sport (Adelaide) 3 July 4/2: Hold on Sam! / You’ve got my bit of skirt, / And if you don’t do a hook, / You know my fist will hurt . | |
| Capricornia (1939) 287: Pack your traps and get ready to hook it first thing mornin’ time. D’ you hear? If I find you on the run tomorrer mornin’ I’ll belt you. | |
| Inside the Und. 40: George then hooked it for three hours. |
(c) to die.
| ‘Epistle from Joe Muggins’s Dog’ in Era (London) 4 July 3/3: ‘Come here, young un,’ says he to me [...] ‘Come here, you forrerd young himp afore l hooks it’ — (it don’t matter you know, Sir, how a dog expresses himself even on his death-bed). |
(d) (US) to play truant.
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 41: hook, v. To absent one’s self from class. | |
| Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 15: I hooked school and hustled in the streets. | |
| Stud Buds and Dorks 2: To not go to class...hook, hookey, play hookey [HDAS]. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 33: Hook school and go shoot some pool. |
4. in senses of grabbing or grasping.
(a) (US, orig. tramp) to steal a ride on a train or other vehicle, to hitchhike.
| Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 102: Even the boys who catch rides on the back of drays and wagons referring to the practice as ‘hooking’ a ride. | |
| (con. 1940s) Tattoo (1977) 51: Once a clumsy kid, Bobby Scrovis, had hooked a freight with them and been swept off the ladder [...] His head was crushed under the wheels. | |
| It (1987) 939: He had somehow found his way out to Route 2 and had hooked a ride to the home place. |
(b) to catch a train, a bus etc.
| Homeboy 77: Hook a bus, hook a freight, anything making southward smoke. |
(c) (US campus) to engage in love making.
| Campus Sl. Mar. 5: hook – to kiss passionately. | |
| Campus Sl. Nov. 5: hook/* – [...] engage in sexual activities. ‘I hear that Dave hooked with three different chicks from that mixer.’. | |
| OnLine Sl. Dict. 5 Jan. 🌐 Last night I hooked him. |
(d) (US black) to search for.
| cited in Juba to Jive (1994). |
(e) (US campus) to help.
| Campus Sl. Mar. 5: hook someone – do a favor, help someone. |
(f) (US drugs) to find or obtain something.
| Crackhouse 149: hooking locating or finding something desirable. |
5. (drugs) to inject narcotics.
| Junkie (1966) 92: You’ve been hooking that spot so much it’s about to get infected. |
In derivatives
the criminal world of thieving, confidence trickery etc.
| Magill Sept. n.p.: His [...] were the politics of the stroke, the fixer, the parish pump, of graft, hookery, crookery and whatever you’re having yourself [BS]. | |
| Out After Dark 7: Others, less favoured, muttered peevishly that there was no justice, that hookery paid, and honesty was an also-ran. |
In phrases
1. (US) to get introduced to or put in touch with, to entice.
| ‘Orson and Ellen’ Works (1801) V 349: Pastry-cooks should [...] To sell their tarts and pies; Put in their shop some pretty Lass, To hook in passing eyes. | |
| Biglow Papers (1880) 1: So he cal’lated to hook him in. | |
| Guardian Rev. 25 Feb. 14: It was the anger and poetry which hooked me in. |
2. to associate oneself with.
| ‘’Arry on ’appiness’ in Punch 3 Jan. 4/1: And so because I’m out of luck, and that differ has landed the chink, / She ’ooks into him, like a bat to a belfry, Sir! | |
| diary 27 Sept. 🌐 Sure enough we had orders to get ready to go to the support of a Division to the eastward which was being pressed. After hooking in and being all ready we didn’t go after all. |
3. (Aus./US) to get involved in.
| Gangster Girl 43: He’s hooked in wit’ Tamm’ny an’ he’s no pushover. | |
| Guardian Media 21 June 5: Suppose those magazines are no longer hooked into women’s lives? |
see sense 3 above.
(US) to play truant.
| Dict. Americanisms (4th edn). | |
| Partners of the Tide 70: The boy ‘hooked Jack’ for a whole day, because he wouldn’t wear the things to school. | |
| ‘Gatherings From Newspapers’ in DN IV:iv 305: hook Jack, n. phr. = hookey. |
see separate entries.
1. (Aus./N.Z.) to escape, to run off.
| Love and Chiffon 233: Look slippy, buddies. Hook your muttons for an extra. | |
| N.Z. Sl. 53: To hook one’s bait or mutton, to depart (a variant of the English sling one’s hook). | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 234/1: hook your bait (hook your mutton) – go away. | |
| Holy Smoke 51: He decides he’ll run a grouter on the Lord, and hook his bait. | |
| Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 57/2: hook your mutton clear out. | |
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988]. |
2. (N.Z.) to dance with someone.
| Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 104: hook one’s bait/mutton [...] 2. Engage a partner in a dance. [...] 1920s ANZ. |
1. (US) to enter into a relationship, e.g. marriage; to have sex.
| ‘The Fable of What Horace Stood For’ in True Bills 36: Horace often suspected that some of them hooked up merely to get a Whack at the Finery. But then, Horace was a regular old Cynic. | |
| Indoor Sports 4 Apr. [synd. cartoon] What did I get when I got hooked up — a bum lamp. | |
| Quick Brown Fox 46: ‘Got a heavy date, that boy. Hot pants is what he got. Wait till he gets hooked up and the wife presents him with a couple of kids. He’ll cool off’. | |
| Campus Sl. Mar. 6: hook-up – to date seriously. | |
| (con. c.1915) The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 2: M. | |
| The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 2: She met my daddy, they hooked up together and married and started a family. | |
| Cherry Pie [ebook] He and Chloe had hooked up a few months before. | |
| Last Kind Words 81: She was pretty and popular and shouldn’t be hooked up with a twenty-year-old hood. | |
| Donnybrook [ebook] ‘They hooked up. She made a deal with Ned. Kill Angus, split his crank’. | |
| Straight Dope [ebook] — I knew nothing good could come from him hooking up with that bitch. | |
| Opal Country 70: ‘We’d hook up every now and then’. |
2. (US) to become involved in, e.g. an argument.
| ‘Life on Broadway’ in McClure’s Mag. Mar. 36/1: Then him an’ the guy it was for hooked up in a tur’ble row. | |
| Another Mug for the Bier 120: ‘She’d do anything to keep him from being hooked up in a scandal. Wants him to be President’. |
3. (US black) to procure, arrange for, obtain.
| Shoedog 56: ‘You gonna hook my ladies up today, hear what I’m sayin’? Some evening shoes, man’. | |
| ‘the man thing’ in What They Found 121: I was thinking serious about hooking up my own crib, nothing too fancy because I didn’t dig going into no whole lot of debt. | |
| Game 23: I’d probably have to learn to drive, but I knew I could hook that up. | |
| Cruisers: A Star is Born 19: LaShonda Powell did [...] anything connected with clothing. If you could wear it, she could hook it up. | |
| Riker’s 156: A guy who would hook you up with decent food. |
4. to meet.
| Slam! 133: he two guys hooked up at the curb and put their heads together. | |
| (con. 1990s) One of the Guys 43: She became gang-involved when she ‘hooked up with’ another gang member in a residential facility. | |
| (con. 1980s) Skagboys 213: Alexander had left a message sayin he wanted tae hook up. |
5. (N.Z. prison) to smoke marijuana.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 90/1: hook up v. to smoke marijuana. |
6. (US und.) to establish a professional relationship with.
| Rakim Told Me 64: During the pre-Paid in Full period [. . .], the two also hooked up new management. | |
| Alphaville (2011) 69: Arthur’s plan [is to] redistribute the material to the dealers he’s hooked up in Brooklyn. | |
| ‘How to Make the Perfect New York Bagel’ in ThugLit Jan. [ebook] ‘Billy and Richie. Word is they're hooked up [i.e. to organized crime]. Maybe they can go knock some heads in…’. |
1. engaging in theft.
| Marvel 21 Apr. 352: A ’cute kid that, if yer could once get ’im on the ’ook. | |
| ‘Significant Strains’ Sporting Times 9 May 1/3: The presence close at hand / Of two feminines, the housemaid and the cook / Gave the game away sufficiently to make us understand / Why they chanced to be so handy on the ‘hook’. | |
| Letters from the Big House 57: He’s on the hook orl right. Collidge, engineer, diploamers, stiffkits, letters arter ’is name, but on the hook. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
2. (US) playing truant.
| in Little Nemo 71: And other desperadoes, who / Had been on many ‘hooks,’ / Now came to school in model style, / Each bringing all his books. | |
| Call It Sleep (1977) 246: He’s onna hook. | |
| Amboy Dukes 72: Your mom’s found out about you going on the hook? | |
| Tough and Violent 126: Nothin’ Brown is also on the hook from school today. |
3. see hooked adj.2
SE in slang uses
In phrases
to swallow, usu. in the context of drugs.
| Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby (1966) 6: Hopping himself up with good old amphetamine [...] then hooking down more alcohol. | |
| Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1969) 47: Kesey and his circle would be hooking down something that in the entire world only they and a few avant-garde neuropharmacological researchers even knew about. |
(US black) to commit oneself too, to become involved with.
| Slam! 117: Then the only thing I could dream about is being on the same corner as the other brothers, looking for something to hook into. |
1. (US) to finish, to bring to a conclusion.
| Homeboy 213: A Chowhall guard [...] ordered them to hook it up. |
2. see hook up (with) v. (13)
(Aus.) of a man, to initiate a relationship with a woman.
| Sport (Adelaide) 1 Mar. 12/2: Garney D., the little woman-hater, was well after a tart Sunday night, but failed to hook on. Try again, Garney! [ibid.] 12/4: Will some nice-looking boy [...] kindly hook on to Miss Vera, the Sunday-school teacher. She has thrown out her line but no one will bite. |
1. to attach oneself to someone, to follow about.
| Morn. Post 18 Dec. 3/3: I hooks on a covey, so smilin’ and smug / Vich Bill comes behind and puts on the hug. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 22 Aug. 12/3: All this reminds us that once in the whirl of a giddy age we endeavoured to hook on to something symmetrical inside a black satin skirt and a seal-skin jacket. | |
| ‘’Arry on the ’Oliday Season’ in Punch 16 Aug. 74/1: ’Ardly know which is lummiest, swelp me! It’s nuts to ’ook on to a swell. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 7 July 15/1: I can shake a loose leg, so I hooked on to a fine gal – a reg’lar stunner. She went for me and I began serously [sic] to think of makin’ her Mrs. Muggins. | |
| Eve. Post 26 Nov. 6/4: ‘Does yer maw know you’re aht?’ says the girl. ‘Not ’arf’ retorts the gay Lothario; and they hook on forthwith. |
2. to discover.
| Dock Rats of N.Y. (2006) 8: Remember you’re nobody’s child, and I’ve hooked on to the secret. |
see separate entries.