Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) a prostitute, usu. female.

1835		N.Y. Transcript 25 Sept. 2/4: Prisoner: [...] he called me a hooker. Magistrate: What did you call her a hooker for? Witness: ’Cause she allers hangs around the hook, your honner.
1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 20 Aug. n.p.: the rake wants to knowWhen are we to have a fresh importation of ‘hookers.’ The stock is [...] pretty well used up. We want fresh hands at the bellow but don’t want fire.
1845		in N.E. Eliason Tarheel Talk (1956) 277: If he comes by way of Norfolk he will find any number of pretty Hookers [...] not far from French’s hotel.
1855		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 14 Apr. n.p.: [context is Philadelphia] That indefatigable manager [...] setting there between two of the worst hookers in town — Emma, of Richmond street, and another.
1859		Bartlett Dict.Americanisms (2nd edn) 201: Hooker. A resident of the Hook, i.e. a strumpet, a sailor’s trull.
1859		Calif. Police Gazette 22/3: [headline] Free Fight among the Hookers.
1867		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 14 Sept. n.p.: Big Moll Johnson, the Amazon of ‘Hooker’s division,’ a ‘rusty’ old ‘gin pig,’ lost to virtue and wedded to sin, was before the ‘beakquere’ [...] for creating a disturbance in the ‘snoozing ken’.
1878–9		A. Garcia Tough Trip Through Paradise (1977) 53: Their scheme was to get a hooker, or harlot, of the town to go and visit.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 37: Hooker, a [...] flash woman.
1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl.
1925		Dos Passos Manhattan Transfer 123: Last night I wanted to go with a hooker an she saw it in my eyes an throwed me out.
c.1930		(con. 1870s) N. Kimball Amer. Madam (1981) 114: What the hell do you tinhorns think we are? A couple of hookers! Did we ask you to pony up?
1940		E. O’Neill Long Day’s Journey into Night Act III: Imagine me sunk to the fat girl in a hick town hooker shop! Me!
1954		J. Thompson Swell-Looking Babe 3: A hooker never gets past the room clerk.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 219: Hooker — that’s a colloquialism for prostitute.
1972		D. Jenkins Semi-Tough 64: There were these three spade hooks in attendance.
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 1: She was a sizzling little hooker just the right side of the age of consent.
1978		R.D. Pharr Giveadamn Brown (1997) 25: ‘Maybe whiteys call whores “hookers” because there’s lots of women gotta be hooked on something or else they don’t function’.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 130: [of a man] If there were a hooker on his fluffed-up sofa at this moment, he might be fucked to death.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 19: [of homosexuals] [T]he poof hookers were afforded an unexpected treat.
1985		N. Pileggi Wiseguy (2001) 93: She didn’t look like a hook. She looked more like a student or a stewardess.
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 136: Just you and all the hookers, maybe a lesbo or two.
1993		Dr Dre ‘Nuthin But a G Thang’ 🎵 And now all you hookas and hos know how I feel.
1999		P. Temple Black Tide (2012) [ebook] The two hookers [...] Syliva and Carlette? Out there in that fancy hotel.
2002		D.H. Sterry Chicken (2003) 117: Now she’s asking the boy hooker for real-estate advice.
2007		W. Ellis Crooked Little Vein 178: They knew Alexis was a hooker. His/her pimp was well known to them.
2009		P. Temple Truth 28: Pretty Woman [...] Religious text for hookers.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 294: Measuring out baggies of cocaine [...] waiting for his hooker to call.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 102: Golden-hearted hookers and [...] desperate young virgins.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] [T]he wiseguys wanted to run hookers, to run gambling.
2017		G. Gilmore Headland [ebook] ‘Hookers, you mean? Alycia maybe, but it doesn’t fit with what everyone says about Georgie’.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] ‘Are we talking hookers and cocaine, by any chance?’.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 137: They had even picked up some women who turned out to be working girls [...] Ronnie [...] snorted coke off the sexiest hooker’s ass.
2021		C. Hammer Opal Country 173: ‘Maybe he’s ashamed of something. You know, visiting a hooker or something’.

2. attrib. use of sense 1.

1920		E. O’Neill Anna Christie Act III: A woman is the same as others you’d meet in any hooker-shanty in port, with red gowns on them and paint on their grinning mugs.
1980		G. Liddy Will 129: Only when I'd moved in did I notice all the hooker traffic and furtive meetings in hallways.
2009		N. Flexner Disassembled Man [ebook] She might have some hooker money lying around.

3. (US campus) an idiot, a stupid person, a general term of abuse.

1997–2001

Online Sl. Dict. 🌐 hooker n 1. a prostitute. (‘He spent the night with a hooker in Las Vegas.’) 2. an unintelligent person; MORON. (‘You stupid hooker!’).