Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US police) a list of stolen goods that may have been pawned.

1990

S. Morgan Homeboy 99: We have to keep an eye on the hock sheets.

1. a pawnbroker’s shop; thus attrib.

1886		Lantern (N.O.) 22 Sept. 2: Take the bed too, and run it into a hock shop.
1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 27: ‘Vair you get zis?’ he asked me [...] ‘At a hock shop, for a couple o’ dollars,’ said I.
1902		Courier (Lincoln, Neb.) 1 Nov. 7/1: It is nothing unusual for the hock-shop man to . .
1916		J. Lait ‘Charlie the Wolf’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 39: Ab you don’ shut it up by your rotten hock shop this ferflugte bell I throw right away through your vindeh a teapot.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 117: How about getting them [i.e. pistols] in a hockshop?
1936		J.T. Farrell World I Never Made 222: If he didn’t sell it them, he would try a hock shop.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 234: Can you see me walking into a hock shop with stuff like that?
1955		B. Appel Tough Guy [ebook] A hulking kid and a kid with shaggy dark blond hair, wearing hockshop specials for coats.
1957		‘Ed Lacy’ Lead With Your Left (1958) 52: Give me more work making the rounds of the hock shops looking for a damn stolen jacket. [Ibid.] 53: Two hock shop tickets dated five and eight days ago.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 262: Neil wouldnt even tell the cops about the stolen guns — wouldnt even check the hockshops.
1974		(con. late 1940s) E. Thompson Tattoo (1977) 607: He had got two dollars at a hock shop – it wasn’t much of a camera.
1982		S. King Running Man in Bachman Books (1995) 572: Molie ran a Dock Street hockshop.
1997		L. Davies Candy 46: The hock-shop door was locked.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] Marvin Oates, bug-eyed Vegas hock-shop proprietor.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Irish Fandango [ebook] [He] got off a few stops later outside Sol’s hock shop.

2. a prison.

1952

J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 616: He’s a three time loser and the smartest joe in this hockshop.

caught in the act.

1859

Matsell Vocabulum 42: Caught in hock; caught by the heels. ‘If the cove should be caught in the hock he won’t snickle,’ if the fellow should be caught in the act, he would not tell.

(N.Z.) to get rid of, to dump.

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl.

1. in prison; thus the reverse, out of hock.

1859		Matsell Vocabulum 113: Among thieves a man is in hock, when he is in prison .
1889		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 7 Dec. 3/3: [N]ow she's in hock. The pretty Bertha is now in thoeChicago lock-up charged with swindling.
1902		‘Hugh McHugh’ Back to the Woods 60: I [...] rushed away to formulate some plan to get Bunch out of hock.
1913		H.A. Franck Zone Policeman 88 134: To-day there will arrive and also be put in hock the three gents whose names you have there.
1922		Broadway Brevities Aug. 40/1: Betty stuck and finally had Cook trundled over to the night-court [...] Dave hastily donned his galluses, taxied unto the station and took Cook out of hock.
1928		Rocky Mountain News (Denver) 13 Nov. in AS III:3 255/1: In hock, in hospital, out of town, away—In prison.
1930		‘Rags’ Roberts ‘The Old Cook County Jail’ in Stiff Milk and Honey Route (1930) 194: It was a scheme to get me lousy when they landed me in hock.
1949		R. Chandler Little Sister 150: This ex-Cleveland gangster was supposed to be in hock at the County Jail.
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 79/2: Get one out of hock. 1. To get one out on bail. 2. (P) To effect one’s release from punishment cells; (by extension) to get one out of his cell any time, as when the guard inadvertently neglects to leave him out for recreation, church services, etc.
1959		E. De Roo Young Wolves 121: I oughta save this for the spring-lawyer to get Pop outa hock.

2. (US) out of sight, suspended from one’s occupation.

1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 23 Nov. 2/2: How was it that a certain ‘peeler’ was recently kept ‘in hock’ on the quiet, until the ‘bloke’ had sailed from the city?
1941		‘Digg Mee’ ‘Observation Post’ in N.Y. Age 22 Nov. 9/6: [of someone suffering a STD] Just ask the doc. For a while, my lad’s in hock ( [...] you can’t play with fire without being burned).

3. in pawn; thus the reverse, out of hock.

1884		H. Dougherty Oratorical Stump Speaker 26: My other coat’s in hock [DA].
1896		Ade Artie (1963) 94: They go back home and leave all their stuff in hock.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 270: Torquato Tasso [...] put his father’s sword, four sheets, two table-covers, and an embroidered lawn toga in hock for twenty-five lira.
1907		B. Fisher A. Mutt in Blackbeard Compilation (1977) 7: With the whole bankroll gone and the old cannon in hock, he is still at it.
1920		C.B. Booth ‘Mr Clacksworthy Tells the Truth’ Detective Story 19 Oct. 🌐 You mean th’ nickel-grabbers couldn’t drag in enough jack t’ keep th’ subway out of hock?
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 249: I also got his clothes out of hock, but could never find my own coat, which the Jane had pawned.
1938		A.J. Liebling ‘The Jollity Building’ in Just Enough Liebling (2004) 259: He asked me for a loan of three dollars so he could get his teeth out of hock to con a sucker.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 29: I went right down to take my old flute out of hock.
1953		T.A.G. Hungerford Riverslake 124: Most of them went into hock for a flash bike, or a car.
1959		W. Burroughs Naked Lunch (1968) 150: So all that winter, one after another, the diamonds, emeralds, pearls [...] go in hock.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 135: Theyll certainly understand what a girl feels like with all her drag clothes in hock!
1974		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water 11: She feeds me when I’m hungry, keeps my clothes out a soak [hock], / and as long as I got this fabulous old broad I can’t be broke.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 22: Their’s [i.e. a television] had been in hock these last two weeks.
1998		Sun. Tel. Mag. 11 Jan. 12: We’re in hock. We’ve invested the same again since we came here.
1999		R.G. Barrett Wind & Monkey (2013) [ebook] He can get his lawnmower out of hock.
2000		Guardian G2 17 Mar. 18: They’d already be in hock.
2005		E. Weiner Big Boat to Bye-Bye 142: ‘Did he have big debts? Was he in hock to the mob?’.
2013		C. Murphy ‘Gato Negro’ in ThugLit Apr. [ebook] ‘You ever get your bike out of hock?’.

4. indebted to, owing both money and metaphorical debts; thus the reverse, out of hock.

1899–1900		C.L. Cullen Tales of the Ex-Tanks 170: I [...] got some duds out of hock.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 135: The Chief has got that jurist in hock to him, d’y see!
1912		Van Loan ‘Loosening Up of Hogan’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 136: Most o them were ‘in hock to the club’ at the beginning of every season.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 87: Here I go and put myself in hock to Nate Shapiro for more dough than I ever seen in my life so’s to help Mrs. Willcox out of a hole, and the only enemy I got in the wide, wide world gets the credit for it!
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win 390: I was in hock to friends who saved me from a heavy sentence.
1938		D. Runyon ‘That Ever-Loving Wife of Hymie’s’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 595: I am pretty much in hock here and there.
1942		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam Star-News 11 Apr. 16: The chick you get should punch a clock, / To help you pay the bills and keep you out of hock!
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 20: A borrower never gets out of hock.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 212: These men had their lives in hock.
1961		H. Ellison Rockabilly (1963) 162: He’s been getting into hock more and more.
1969		Kerouac letter 16 Jan. in Charters II (1999) 465: He said, ‘Don’t get in hock with the publishers, just sell my letters that I wrote to you.’.
1978		J. Krantz Scruples 293: The Belmondo film went down the toilet, I’m in hock, Maggie.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 282: Did you ever know a pimp who was in hock? Did you ever know a cop who wasn’t?
1986		C. Bowles G’DAY 1: The Foster family are up to their eyes in hock. They used to live in a unit in Bondi but they got turfed out.
1989		R.G. Barratt ‘Tall Poppies Deserve Shrift’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] Now to get himself out of hock he’s going to flog off his resorts.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 382: I told her you still love dope and you’re in hock to some bookies.
2000		Indep. Rev. 5 May 10: It concerns a cocky gambler [...] in hock to a hooligan bookie.
2002		R.G. Barrett Mystery Bay Blues 19: Now here he was [...] still in hock to Les for two hundred dollars.
2017		T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] ‘I’m owed a debt, now I’m the one in hock’.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 89: She’s in hock to half the quack doctors [...] on the west side.

5. in trouble.

1922

T. Thursday ‘Art for Artie’ in Argosy All-Story 30 Dec. 🌐 Unless we prepare to meet Japan in the fast approaching future, the Japs will soon be hanging around Times Square like locusts, and then we’ll all be in hock.

(US tramp) impoverished.

1931

Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 137: On the Hocks.–Literally, standing. Impoverished.

on credit.

2005

K. Huff A Steady Rain I i: joey: And across the living room the screen on the big set… denny: …the 52-incher, the one we just knobbed on hock from Best Buy.