Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a fight.

1908

(US) H. Green Maison De Shine 131: Casino’s a big guy, an’ a scrapper. What’s the use of gittin’ him an’ me in a hook-up!

2. a connection between one person and another.

1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 116: It’ll put us in line for a hook-up with th’ reform bunch.
1930		J. Lait Put on the Spot 30: You know what hook-ups he’s got. You know the precin’t captains, the distric’ leaders, the ward committeemen that are in with him.
1947		T. Thursday ‘Billy the Kidder’ in Blue Ribbon Western Nov. 🌐 A nice hook-up! [...] Yup; a very nice hook-up!
1960		Mad mag. June 48: On this cool seat I took up, trying hard to spot the hook-up.
1966		H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 244: They would [...] stay until they got bored or ran out of LSD, which only a few had ever tried prior to the Kesey hookup.
1970		J. Conaway Big Easy 133: You’re going to help the brethren make a certain hookup so we can get us some bread.
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 168: The benefit to having a hookup like Abe is that [...] when you can have preordered and set up you can get a lot more done.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 46: As I adjust to my surroundings I learn that everyone in there is by way of a hook-up or have fifteen years on the job or better.
2015		P. Beatty Sellout (2016) 243: These white bitches got the hook-up [...] The old girls’ network exists.

3. a connection between one thing and another.

1911		H. Quick Yellowstone Nights vii 191: The Golden Fountain [...] had no lawyer against us. It was a funny hook up [DA].
1933		C.G. Booth ‘Stag Party’ in Penzler Pulp Fiction (2006) 133: Addams in, we work for a new deal in the police hookup.
1937		J.M. Cain Serenade (1985) 190: The hook-up gave it what it needed.
1942		R. Chandler High Window 221: Teager ran away because the elevator man told him old Morningstar had been murdered and he smelled a hook-up.
1958		H. Ellison Web of the City (1983) 145: There was a hookup and [...] he would have to knuckle down in enemy turf to find the answer.
1997		L. Pettiway Workin’ It 160: I didn’t belong there, out there in the outside world. [...] That was a whole different hookup.

4. (US) a sexual or romantic relationship or the person with whom one has a relationship; modern use focuses on the innate ephemerality.

1935		E. Freeman ‘The Whirling Hub’ in Afro-American (Baltimore, MD) 19 Jan. 14/3: Shame! Shame! that some sepia lad will do a hook-up with such a lass.
1942		R.L. Bellem ‘Broken melody’ in Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 Chiquita told me a lot about Reid, including his former hook-up with Betty Coughlin.
1989		Eble Campus Sl. Sept. 4: hook up (with) – meet someone [...] someone encountered in a social setting as a casual partner for sex: That guy over there was Susie’s hookup last Saturday.
1995		Eble Campus Sl. Dec.
2006		G. Iles Turning Angel 333: I’d been reviewing Kate’s ‘hook-ups’ lists in her journal.
2010		J. Ellroy Hilliker Curse 13: It pre-dated his circa ’40 hookup with Jean.
2012		D. Whish-Wilson ‘In Savage Freedom’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I can load you that faggot hook-up site, whassit called?
2013		NY Times 14 July 🌐 She texted her regular hook-up — the guy she is sleeping with but not dating [...] ‘hookin-up’ can signify anything from making out to oral sex to intercourse — without the emotional entanglement of a relationship.
2016		C. Eble UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2016.

5. (US campus) an ability to get proper connections with certain people or things, e.g. drugs.

1979		E. Torres After Hours 149: Coulda been a dynamite score. Coulda been a big dope hookup for me in Asia.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 got the hookup Definition: to be in the state of having received goods or being in connection with the desired items. Example: Pimp 1:You gots da stuff? Pimp 2: Yeh, i gots da hookup.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] [of drugs] ‘I can’t leave town [...] I got no hookups out of town’.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘Are you making any progress on Carter’s gun hookup?’.

6. (US drugs) a place where drugs are sold.

1997

L. Pettiway Workin’ It 163: ’Cause like ten-twelve is the most peaceful hookup [...] Its more older people in that building. They more aware of who they sell to.

7. (US prison) a story made up by a prison officer to cause trouble for a prisoner.

2000

Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Hook-up: (1) An officer has lied or made up a story to get an inmate in trouble or sent to the hole.

8. (US prison) various items purchased from the commissary.

2000

Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Hook-up: [...] (2) A concoction of items bought from the commissary, such as tuna, dried soup, pepper, crackers, etc.

9. (US black) a suit of clothes, an outfit.

2001

G. Pelecanos Right As Rain 111: He wore pressed jeans and a Hilfiger shirt with Timberland boots. ‘What, you don’t like my hookup?’.

10. (US drugs) the individual from whom one buys drugs, a drug dealer.

2008		‘Grandmaster Flash’ Adventures 185: [H]e also moves big weight on the street, and [...] he’s my bottom-dollar hookup.
2013		I Kirkman ‘Cocaine Starlight’ in ThugLit Nov.-Dec. [ebook] She must be waiting for her promethazine hookup to text.
2019		D. Winslow Border [ebook] Maybe, she thinks now as she looks for her hookup, heroin is God.