Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see hooknose n.

see separate entry .

(US) one’s hand/arm in the context of earning a living, e.g. a baseball pitcher's working arm, the hand in which a poker player holds their cards.

1901		G. Ade Forty Modern Fables 153: He died like an Outcast with three Type-Writers clutched in his Salary Hook.
1905		G. Ade People You Know 133: [T]he Missus looked at him through her Tears and held his Salary-Hook in hers.
1914		H. Hershfield Abie the Agent 11 Sept. [synd. cartoon strip] [of baseball] Gosh what luck! My salary hook on the blink.
1919		Pennsylvania Medical Jrnl 22 483/2: This is a working hand, or ‘salary hook’ It is replaced on Sun- days by the more beautiful artificial hand.

(US) to dismiss, to demand someone stop or leave [the hook as used in US vaudeville to drag off unpopular performers].

2022

J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 57: I can’t believe I’m the only motherfucker who want to call the hook on this li’l girl making this caterwaul!’.

(US Und.) to serve a life sentence.

1936

Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 578: Finally, he devises many new verbs and verb-phrases or provides old ones with new meanings, e.g., [...] to bump off, to hijack, to do the hook.

to grasp, to grab, to obtain, esp. when the object is most desired or currently held by a rival.

1897		Current Advertising 2-8 707/2: The medical profession is the hardest one in the world to get your hooks into.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 195: There’s a tray of ’em [...] all got their hooks on me.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 136: If we get our hooks on what I’m after, [...] we’ll wipe that gang off th’ earth.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 487: But first we’ll get our hooks into the place.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 218: I’d hate to leave a poor little defenceless piece of property lying around where he could get his hooks on it!
1933		N. Algren ‘So Help Me’ from Story mag. in Texas Stories (1995) 21: I got my hooks in him then and set him down hard.
1937		P. Cheyney Dames Don’t Care (1960) 60: He is lyin’ to pinch Henrietta just as soon as he can get his hooks on her.
1939		R. Chandler ‘Trouble Is My Business’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 175: She’s got her hooks into a rich man’s pup.
1942		A. Christie Body in the Library (1959) 82: She’d got her hooks into Jeff all right.
1951		M. Spillane One Lonely Night 19: If the D.A. gets his hooks into you just once, you’ll have a ring through your nose.
1960		Wodehouse Jeeves in the Offing 44: [He tries] to get his hooks on any stray cash that’s floating around.
1966		J. Mills Panic in Needle Park (1971) 28: Wait till Helen got her hooks into him. She’d milk the guy dry in four days, a week for sure.
1971		Wodehouse Much Obliged, Jeeves 7: Let some man of ill will get his hooks on that book, and what’ll be the upshot?
1974		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell Plays Solomon (1976) 61: That’s what he wanted, to get his hooks into me.
1988		A. Gurnah Pilgrims Way 153: She’s got her hooks into you, young man. I bet she keeps her legs crossed until you pop the question.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 327: ‘How long before we bleed him?’ ‘Get your hooks in good and deep. Wait till they touch bone.’.
1999		Guardian G2 23 Aug. 8: Get your hooks into the Duke of Clarence, not fall on every sodding sword in sight.
2002		B.D. Gardner A Year of Samantha 190: Francesca was a gold digger and got her hooks into him and soon had him at the altar.

1. (US black/teen) used of something so good as to transcend description.

1997–2000		Da Bomb 🌐 20: Off the hook: Happening; incredibly cool and hip.
1999		Eble Campus Sl. Nov. 8: off the hizzy – phenomenal, awesome: ‘The Clefhangers concert was off the hizzy’.
2001		J. Stahl Plainclothes Naked (2002) 186: Oh yeah [...] This shit’s off the hook! We got tootonium here. I left a bump for you.
2004		Reveal & Doc Brown ‘What You Need’ 🎵 It’s that boom thing. Check that [i.e. a CD] – it’s off the hook.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 81: Yo, your kite was right!! Chic, ya off the hook, and on some real shit.
2017		theculturetrip.com ‘Guide to London Slang 10 Jan. 🌐 Off the hook – exceeding one’s expectations.

2. (US) completely unacceptable, crazy, out of control.

1997–2001		Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 off the hook adj [...] 2. wild or crazy, (‘I had to leave that party. It was off da hook!’) 3. extremely upset. (‘Yo, since you told all her business, she’s been acting off da hook.’).
1999		Eble Campus Sl. Apr. 5: off the heezie – continuously: ‘Your phone’s been ringing off the heezie, man’.
2002		Simon & Burns ‘The Pager’ Wire ser. 1 ep. 5 [TV script] Girl was off the hook. One time she threatened to write a letter on him.
2004		Guardian G2 20 Sept. 16: Natasha Brown sings about sex [her] recent single Bedroom Bully is equally salacious. ‘Oh God, that one is very off the hook. That’s about sex and ... whatever,’ she giggles.
2006		Prison Slang Mommyblogger mydogharriet.blogspot.com 26 Sept. 🌐 So your little jitterbug [...] thinks its funny to split your wig. Thats off the hook, but you can handle it.

3. see also SE phrs. below.

1. (also on one’s own pock-nook) looking after oneself, taking responsibility for one’s own life, on one’s own initiative or volition; the var. is Scot.

1812		Boston Gazette 23 Nov. n.p.: Rodgers himself says that he went upon his own hook.
1821		Sir A. Wylie Works iii 61: I came in on my own pock-nook; as we say in Scotland when a man lives on his own means [F&H].
1836		D. Crockett Exploits and Adventures (1934) 137: Now I start anew upon my own hook.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. V 20: He saw no reason for not taking it upon ‘his own hook’.
1853		‘Philip Paxton’ A Stray Yankee in Texas 152: Off we started, every man on his own hook.
1857		Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 31 Oct. 3/2: I could not quietly hear our horses quoted below par and, therefore, was determined to have a ‘go in on my own hook’.
1861		G.J. Whyte-Melville Good for Nothing (1890) 212: I worked on my own hook, after that, and I rather think I paid my expenses.
1869		W.H. Brewer Rocky Mountain Letters 43: He built a theater and hired a band of nigger minstrels on his own hook.
1877		J. Greenwood Dick Temple I 217: Loose [...] in London — on your own hook and free to wander.
1880		R. Rowe Picked Up in the Streets 49: Many mere ‘chits of children,’ girls as well as boys, each on his or her ‘own hook,’ without any home but such a crowded den as this.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 31 Jan. 8: [pic. caption] A Clerical Blackleg [...] Indulges in a Little Kissing on his own Hook — Shameless Familiarity.
1882		St James’s Gaz. 20 Feb. 6/2: The cross-fanner [...] works alone, or, as he prefers to phrase it, on his own hookstops.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 373: He was out on his own hook, and it’s my belief that he’ll be took this time if he isn’t very careful.
1894		J. Astley Fifty Years (2nd edn) II 156: He [...] subsequently went over [to New York] on his own hook.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 12 May 5/7: He worked his lurks on his own hook, except in regard to ‘magging’.
1896		M. Williams Round London 15: The match girls who, to use a vulgar expression, are on their own hook – that is to say, have detached themselves from their families.
1896		‘Frederick Benton Williams’ (H.E. Hamblen) On Many Seas 266: George didn't go there to hire out as a labourer; he went as a prospector to go up country on his own hook and get rubber.
1902		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 12 Oct. 5/1: ‘An’ these here muscles is all alive on their own hook [...] an’ walks about under his skin just as they likes’.
1904		G.M. Hewett Rat 57: I had always been my mother’s favourite child [...] it meant extra washings and less chance of going away on my own hook.
1910		N.Y. Tribune 18 Sept. 6/2: Say, they’d started up a couple of conversations on their own hook [...] soft-pedal dialogues.
1917		Boy’s Own Paper XL:2 105: Fancy a bike scampering about like this on it’s own hook!
1926		D. Hammett ‘Assistant Murderer’ in Nightmare Town (2001) 160: If she went ahead on her own hook [...] I’d blow up the whole racket.
1930		C.R. Shaw Jack-Roller 56: I felt that I could get along some way on my own hook.
1949		Kerouac letter 28 June in Charters I (1995) 201: A woman like my mother [...] suddenly learns, on her own hook, that she prefers going back to the shoe-factory.
1958		E. Dundy Dud Avocado (1960) 222: It had taken me just exactly one year on my own hook to get myself in a really serious mess.
1965		H.S. Thompson letter 3 May in Proud Highway (1997) 514: I am lazy and unproductive enough on my own hook, without the help of a weed.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 102: This kid Carlito is here on his own hook — nobody brought him here.
1993		S. King Dolores Claiborne 251: He didn’t come forward on his own hook, either.

2. (US) of an achievement or action, done with no help from anyone else, on one’s own.

1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 18 May 3/6: I made all this up on ‘my own hook,’ and [it, i.e. a limerick] is original.
1907		D. Stewart Shadows of the Night in Illus. Police News 7 Sept. 12/3: ‘Shan’t be able to start a pub on my own hook and marry Sally out of what I get from the nobs’.
1911		S. Ford Torchy 262: I butts in and takes a chance on passin’ it along to you on my own hook.
1957		Mad mag. Jan.–Feb. 14: Anybody who got out of sixth grade on his own hook.

1. under control.

1898		Binstead & Wells A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 210: Ball had a rare job to keep Shillin’ton on the hooks after that.
2013		T. Piccirilli Last Whisper in the Dark 263: First he’d suss out a fish [...] Then he’d keep the mark on the hook for as long as he could.

2. in debt to, whether actual or fig.; under the influence of.

1952		H. McCoy Corruption City 63: You were on the hook to a couple of the bigger boys.
1969		P. Boyle All Looks Yellow to the Jaundiced Eye 57: I had him on the hook.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 196: ‘So now you’re on Ginsburg’ hook for fifteen dollars’.
1972		P. Fordham Inside the Und. 109: I never thought that day would come when I should get a gentleman like So-and-So on the hook.
2020		D. Winslow ‘Sunset’ in Broken 191: ‘How much are you on the hook for?’ Neal asks. ‘Three hundred. Thousand’.
2020		G. Disher Consolation 208: ‘They’re on the hook financially, too’.

3. conducting a relationship.

1977

N.C. Heard When Shadows Fall 229: ‘I know you ain’t meant for one person—’ ‘Well, you don’t act like it. You be raising hell every time I get a new man on the hook.’ .

4. (US prison) allotted to, scheduled for.

2023

Rayman & Blau Riker’s 217: The unfortunate ones [...] are constantly moved around to different facilities where they are on the hook to cover random shifts.

(Aus.) to steal.

1873

Stephens My Chinese Cook n.p.: You bought them? Ah, I fear me John, You paid them with a hook [F&H].

(US black) to round up, to recruit.

1941

D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 17 May 11: Uncle Sam’s done pulled his hook act on each and every cat copping a drill on his hinders.

1. (US) to take advantage of.

1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 14: ‘I been maced round here an’ dubbed round here an’ had de hooks t’run into me round here till I’m daffy!’.
1936		W.R. Burnett King Cole 79: ‘If that lunatic of an Asa Fielding is elected we’d better all leave the State. He’d put the hooks into us nicely’.
1947		N. Algren Neon Wilderness (1986) 148: We got to get him now, Rose [...] It’s time to put the hooks in.
1949		I. Shulman Cry Tough! 77: You sure put the hooks into me. What the hell’s the matter with you?

2. to entrap, lit. or fig.

2008

T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 111: The kitchen had already put the hooks in Martha.

1. to pick pockets.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 68/2: One reaching the bottom, I began to ‘sling my hook,’ and had just got the ‘poke’ away from the ‘kick,’ when the ‘moll’ dropped her ‘juke’ suddenly on mine and the ‘skin’ in it.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 115: ‘7 years for slinging my hook.’ [...] ‘Slinging his hook’ is the professional term for picking pockets.

2. see also separate entry .

(US) to box.

1907

N.Y. Eve. Journal 7 Feb. n.p.: Long ago, when the boys used to get out on the turf and toss the hooks, they were strong for the brush all over the face.

(Aus.) a docker, a longshoreman.

1996

J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 151: [H]e fell off the wharf down the ‘Loo whilst fishing for yellowtail and had to be hauled out of the oily dockside brine by an alert hook-slinger on his number three morning tea break.

see under drag v.¹

see under drop off v.¹

see under drop v.¹

1. to be ejected; thus give the hook, to eject.

1904		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 39: The O’Brien — Fitz go got the hooks. {Ed. The fight was prevented by the mayor of New York.}.
1915		Wodehouse Psmith Journalist (1993) 241: You gave him the hook, I guess?
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.

2. in fig. use, to take second place; to suffer a rejection.

1896		H. Blossom Checkers 89: You’d be far from ‘getting the hooks,’ as you call it, with Sadie Martin for a wife.
1908		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 29: It was a case of ’twixt love and duty and love won out. Duty always does get the hook.
1915		G. Bronson-Howard God’s Man 376: Come off with that small-time humor. It even gets the hook in burlycue.

1. to imprison.

1907

B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 13: Have you anything to say for yourself before I give you the hook?

2. to betray, to double-cross.

1908

B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 39: Baby Jack [...] testifying that he had been given the hook by the prosecution. [...] In return for his confessing he had been promised immunity and that now they were renigging on him.

3. to punish, to treat unkindly.

1908

B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 41: I am confident that that intelligent body will give Mutt the hook.

4. to terminate a relationship.

1910

B. Fisher Mutt & Jeff 19 Sept. [synd. strip] It is rumored [...] that his spouse nicked him for his change and then gave him the hook.

to excuse (someone) from punishment.

1963		M. Spillane Return of the Hood 45: Fly’s taking a cure whether he likes it or not and it’ll kill him for letting you off the hook.
1975		E. Torres Carlito’s Way 86: The question is will he let us off the hook?
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 94: I went to Cal State for a year, to placate them, but I hated it. Their death let me off the hook.
1997		H.R.F. Keating Soft Detective 72: Don’t let him off the hook just on his own say-so.
2004		C. Hiaasen Skinny Dip 314: I go and do the Christian thing – which is to let the man off the hook.

1. out of trouble, freed of a difficult situation; cit. 1864 in OED is fig. use of SE.

[1864		Trollope Small House at Allington II 296: ‘Poor Caudle!’ he said to himself; ‘he’s hooked, and he’ll never get himself off the hook again.’ ].
1953		J. Thompson Criminal (1993) 111: Maybe that Federal judgeship will come through soon enough to take me off the hook.
1965		C. Brown Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 186: This took me off the hook and saved my face.
1977		(con. 1960s) D. Goines Black Gangster (1991) 59: Let some tough bastard . . . off the hook.
1987		T. Paulin ‘From ‘Landsflykt’ in Fivemiletown 45: I’m letting you off the hook, Albion, / not for your own sake, never, / but because out of your steam presses / shot Dickens, Darwin, Spencer and Mill!
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 51: You did some nice writing on this piece, Joe. Got us all off the hook.
1993		G. Disher Deathdeal [ebook] ‘Not that you’re off the hook [...] You’re well and truly in the red’.
2000		Indep. on Sun. 16 Jan. 8: Byers’ Bill lets ‘fat cat’ bosses off the hook over pay.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] Who cared? Les was off the hook.
2004		E. Weiner Drop Dead, My Lovely (2005) 215: You’ll not only get my boss off the hook, you’ll save yourself major grief.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 166: The sooner we have something concrete, the sooner you’re off the hook.
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘My father’s influence didn’t get me off the hook, the facts did that’.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 345: ‘Fieldcraft. What I am using to get you off the hook... You need me’.

2. see also sl. phrs. above.

1. ill-tempered, peevish; ‘in a state’.

1639		R. Davenport New Tricke to Cheat the Divell I ii: gef.: What Roger, al amort, me thinkes th’art off o’th’ hookes? rog.: Yes ’faith, and Henges [sic] too, I’me almost desperate, And care not how I am.
1665		Pepys Diary 26 May n.p.: In the evening by water to the Duke of Albermarle, whom I found mightily off the hooks, that the ships are not gone out of the River.
1676		D’Urfey Madam Fickle I i: Sir! the Truth is, my Brothers a little off oth’ Hooks; but ’twill quickly away – ’Tis only the overflows of Wit.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Crew Off the Hooks, in an ill Mood, or out of Humour.
a.1704		R. L’Estrange quoted in Encyc. Dict. n.p.: Easily put off the hooks, and monstrous hard to be pleased again [F&H].
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].

2. crazy, eccentric.

c.1637		R. Brome Damoiselle V i: What, you are off o’the hooks, me-thinks.
1824		W. Scott St Ronan’s Well (1833) 331: Everybody that has meddled in this St. Ronan’s business is a little off the hooks [...] in plain words, a little crazy.
1895		J.S. Wood Yale Yarns 139: Old Sleuth Davidson [...] never was known to lose his head on any occasion [...] Well, Sleuth Davidson went off the hooks, at last, somewhat in this fashion, according to Little Jack Horner.
1908		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Nov. 40/2: An’ here’s luck turnin’ up in your comin’ along an’ not goin’ off the hooks after all.

3. dead.

1861

Hills & Plains 2 170: ‘Any one dead? [...] Can’t you tell me?’ [...] urged the major on the supposition that some relative of hers was ‘off the hooks’.

1. dead; thus drop/go off the hooks, to die; knock off the hooks, to kill, to murder [the ancient practice of exposing the head and limbs of executed traitors in public places around a city].

1840		H. Cockton Valentine Vox 95: No man was ever able to write his own life complete. He’s certain to go off the hooks before he has finished it.
1850		Thackeray Pendennis II 185: I did hope, before I went off the hooks, by Gad, that the fellow that I’d liked [...] would do something to show me that our name [...] was left undishonoured behind us.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 156: ‘Dropped off the hooks,’ said of a deceased person.
1865		Hertford Mercury 22 July 2/7: Lord Palmerston’s a good old soul [...] But he must soon go off the hooks, and then [...] you’ll have to look for Ministers, to fresh young blades like me.
1866		Norman & Grind in Queenslander (Brisbane, Qld) 4 Aug. 2/2: If she ever made any remark to herself on the subject, it was simply, that donkey is going off the hooks very fast.
1870		E. Greey Queen’s Sailors I 93: Mother’s gone off the hooks.
1883		J. Greenwood Odd People in Odd Places 37: I thought, to be sure, I was going off the hooks, and it was no use talking about it.
1888		W.B. Churchward Blackbirding In The South Pacific 133: You’re good now, ain’t you? Of course you are! Then you can afford to go off the hooks first. [...] but I require a little more time to repent.
1921		Galsworthy To Let I i: Old Timothy; he might go off the hooks at any moment. I suppose he’s made his Will.

2. disposed of, e.g. of daughters, married.

1861

Hills & Plains I 110: ‘Not that it is any use [...] my making up to Mrs. O., until those three daughters of hers are off the hooks.

1. (US) responsible (for) something that went wrong.

1947		C.S. Montanye ‘Frozen Stiff’ in Popular Detective Mar. 🌐 What have you got? What was the motive? [...] Who have you got on the hook?
1968		‘Hy Lit’ Hy Lit’s Unbelievable Dict. of Hip Words 29: (you’re) on the hook – You’re responsible if anything goes wrong.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 308: Ziggy knows what the guy’s on the hook for. He wants to see you blow his fucking creep head right off.
2014		K. Garvey ThugLit July [ebook] [A] man was killed [...] and Madison and I were on the hook for it.
2017		Guardian 24 May 🌐 With tens of thousands of drivers eligible for a refund, the company will be on the hook for tens of millions of dollars.
2020		D. Winslow ‘The San Diego Zoo’ in Broken 145: Montalbo could be on the hook for whatever stupid shit this guy did.

2. (N.Z. prison) ostracised, ‘sent to Coventry’.

2001

D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 90/1: on the hook = on the coat.

see sling one’s hook v.

1. to criticize viciously.

1899		W.J. Kountz Billy Baxter’s Letters 54: Now, what do you think of that frosty-hearted fairy? Literally forced me to drink that punch, gets me ripened up, and then throws the hooks into me.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 224: I don’t mind telling you, Major, that you’ve thrown the hooks into me good an’ plenty.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 103: You can always tell when he’s thrown the hook into you.

2. to cheat or swindle, to lure a victim, to seduce.

1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 334: We ain’t comin’ here no more, not an’ git the hooks throwed into us in this way.
1915		S. Ford Shorty McCabe on the Job 10: There was certain parties he’d thrown the hooks into kind of deep maybe, durin’ the heat of the scrap.
1942		W.R. Burnett Quick Brown Fox 7: ‘[T]he guy’s pretty. He’s got nice, curly hair and he don’t look none too strongminded [...] maybe Old Bones can throw the hooks into him’.
1954		J. Steinbeck Sweet Thursday (1955) 108: The boys throw the hook into him for every dime that sticks out.

3. to trick, to fool.

1911

S. Ford Torchy 99: But we did throw the hook into Aunt Laura some! What?

4. to attack with a weapon.

1917

W.Y. Stevenson At the Front in a Flivver 25 Aug. 🌐 They threw the hook into our batteries all day yesterday, and several of the ‘brethren’ nearly got done for.

see hookey (walker)! excl.