Green’s Dictionary of Slang

butcher’s (hook) adj.

ill, sick; upset.

1905		Duke Tritton’s Letter n.p.: So I padded the hoof along the Frog and Toad, still feeling Butcher’s Hook.
1925		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 19 Dec. 3/1: Dearly beloved Blokes and Tabbies, — Before I ’op off I want to drum yer that I'm ‘butcher’s ’ook’ over certain ’appenings in this joint during the past week.
1936		West. Australian (Perth) 6 June n.p.: It’s pretty butcher’s ’ook: / A poor coot uses dinkum slang / Some snoozer comes along / An’ says I’ve got Colonial twang / Me bloomin’ accent’s wrong.
1948		Truth (Sydney) 5 Dec. 6/2: A Pott’s Point dowager had a peke named ‘Tiddles’ Tiddles got ‘butcher’s hook,’ so she sent him off to the vet.
1948		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 25 Dec. 6/2: [H]e finished up feeling very butcher’s, indeed.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dictionary’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxii 7/1: butchers in the comics: Sick in the guts from the rhyming butchers hook and the comic cuts.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 14: Although he wasn’t butcher’s hook he knew that anything heavier [i.e. than soup] might make him horse and cart like a twobob racehorse.
1991		B. Humphries Nice Night’s Entertainment (1981) 186: Still feeling butchers after your op, are you Mau?
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] It [a beer]tasted like dog’s piss. [...] No wonder they call them butcher’s. A couple of these and you’d be butcher’s hook all right. You’d be dead.

In phrases

go/be butcher’s (hook) (v.) (also go butcher hook, go butchers, go butchers’ hooks, go off butcher’s hook) [crook adj. (7)]

to lose one’s temper (with).

1914		Sport (Adelaide) 20 Nov. 5/6: Black Joe went ‘butcher hook’ when he saw his name in ‘Sport’.
1918		Kia Ora Coo-ee 15 Aug. 5/1: A certain New Zealand Regiment, camped on the Jordan flats, recently came under the eagle eye of brother ‘Jacko’, who immediately went ‘butcher’s hook’ or ‘ram’s horn’ and launched forth much frightfulness by lugging a 5.9 up on to one of the spare hills and chucking ironmongery promiscuously about the landscape.
1941		Baker Popular Dict. Aus. Sl. 16: To be butcher’s, to be angry, annoyed (about something). Often ‘go butchers at’ (i.e., ‘go butcher’s hook’ or crook).
1950		A.L. Cherrill Story of a N.Z. Sheep Farm 206: You should ha’ heard him go off butcher’s hook!
1957		D. Whitington Treasure upon Earth 78: These galahs are going butchers. Mick had no great sympathy with the wharf laborers at this stage.
1960		J. Boswell Ernie and the Rest of Us 119: Mum’ll go butchers’ hooks at us if she finds out.
1968		G. Slatter Pagan Game (1969) 150: She goes butchers because me home-brew stained her posh water set.
1972		G.W. Turner Eng. Lang. in Aus. and N.Z. 107: The list of items valid in both countries is a long one and would include [...] go butcher’s hook, rhyming slang for ‘go crook’.
1973		P. Wilson N.Z. Jack 124: Gil went really butcher’s at her to me for a minute.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 24/1: butchers to be angry, often go butchers; short for ‘butcher’s hook’, rhyming slang for ‘go crook at’.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].