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hook

Syllabification: (hook)
Pronunciation: /ho͝ok/
Translate hook | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of hook

noun

  • 1a piece of metal or other material, curved or bent back at an angle, for catching hold of or hanging things on:a picture hook
  • (also fishhook) a bent piece of metal, typically barbed and baited, for catching fish.
  • 2a thing designed to catch people’s attention:companies are looking for a sales hook
  • a chorus or repeated instrumental passage in a piece of popular music that gives it immediate appeal and makes it easy to remember.
  • 3a curved cutting instrument, especially as used for reaping or shearing.
  • 4a short swinging punch made with the elbow bent, especially in boxing:a perfectly timed right hook to the chin
  • Golf a stroke that makes the ball deviate in flight in the direction of the follow-through (from right to left for a right-handed player), typically inadvertently. Compare with slice.
  • 5a curved stroke in handwriting, especially as made in learning to write.
  • Music an added stroke transverse to the stem in the symbol for an eighth note or other note.
  • 6 [usually in place names] a curved promontory or sand spit.

verb

  • 1 [with object] attach or fasten with a hook or hooks:the truck had a red lamp hooked to its tailgate she tried to hook up her bra [no object]:a ladder that hooks over the roof ridge
  • bend or be bent into the shape of a hook so as to fasten around or to an object: [with object]:he hooked his thumbs in his belt [no object]:her legs hooked around mine
  • 2 [with object] catch with a hook:he hooked a 24-lb pike
  • informal captivate:I was hooked by John’s radical zeal
  • archaic informal steal.
  • 3 [with object] Golf strike (the ball) or play (a stroke) so that the ball deviates in the direction of the follow-through, typically inadvertently.
  • [no object] Boxing punch one’s opponent with the elbow bent.
  • 4 [with object] Rugby push (the ball) backward with the foot from the front line in a scrum.
  • 5 [no object] (usually as noun hooking) informal (of a woman) work as a prostitute.

Phrases

by hook or by crook

by any possible means:the government intends, by hook or by crook, to hold on to the land

get one's hooks into

informal get hold of:they were going to move out rather than let Mel get his hooks into them

get (or give someone) the hook

North American informal be dismissed (or dismiss someone) from a job.

hook, line, and sinker

used to emphasize that someone has been completely deceived or tricked:he fell hook, line, and sinker for this year’s April Fool joke
[with allusion to the taking of bait by a fish]

off the hook

  • 1 informal no longer in difficulty or trouble:I lied to get him off the hook
  • 2(of a telephone receiver) not on its rest, and so preventing incoming calls.

on the hook for

North American informal (in a financial context) responsible for:he’s on the hook for about $9.5 million

on one's own hook

North American informal, dated on one’s own account; by oneself.

Phrasal Verbs

hook up

  • 1 (also hook someone/something up) link or be linked to electronic equipment:he was hooked up to an electrocardiograph
  • 2 informal (of two people) meet or form a relationship:she decides to hook up with Jake, a kid from the nearby boys' school
  • engage in or form a casual sexual relationship:hooking up with total strangers can be very dangerous

Derivatives

hookless

adjective

hooklet

Pronunciation: /-lit/
noun

hooklike

Pronunciation: /-ˌlīk/
adjective

Origin:

Old English hōc, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch hoek 'corner, angle, projecting piece of land', also to German Haken 'hook'

hook in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of hook in the British & World English dictionary

Nearby words

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