hooker

One who, or that which, hooks.

Noun

  1. One who, or that which, hooks.
  2. A player who hooks the ball out of the scrum with his foot.
    • Hooker Dylan Hartley was sent to the sin-bin after yet another infringement at the breakdown and, on the stroke of half-time, Georgia's territorial advantage finally told when number eight Basilaia surged over from the...
  3. A batsman or batswoman adept at or fond of playing hook shots.
    • I once saw Hassett drop England opening batsman and compulsive hooker, Cyril Washbrook, twice in succession at deep fine leg. - 1990, Ashes: Battles and Bellylaughs, Byron Bay: Swan Publishing, page 32:
  4. A crocheter.
  5. Synonym of hook (“attention-grabbing element of a creative work”).
    • We regard the first seven seconds of a television commercial as the most critical or crucial in the whole unit — the "Do or Die Seven" — the "moment of decision" or the "hooker", if you will, when we must capture the...

    Synonyms: hook

  6. A thief who uses a pole with a hook on the end to steal goods.
    • They are sure to be clyd in the night by the angler, or hooker, or such like pilferers that liue upon the spoyle of other poore people. - c. 1608–1610, Samuel Rid, Martin Mark-all, Beadle of Bridewell:
    • Suffer none, from far or near, / With their rights to interfere; / No strange Abram, Ruffler crack— / Hooker of another pack— - 1834, William Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood, volume 2, Oath of the Canting Crew, page 339:

Origin

Etymology tree English hook Proto-Indo-European *-yósder. Proto-Italic *-āzijos Latin -āriusnom. Latin -āriusbor. Proto-Germanic *-ārijaz Proto-West Germanic *-ārī Old English -ere Middle English -ere English -er English hooker From hook (verb) + -er.

Forms

hookers

Synonyms

angler nuthook

Related

Hooker

Derived

hooker-in hooker-on left hooker text hooker

Noun US, slang

  1. A prostitute.
    • All my life, been hustling / And tonight is my appraisal / 'Cause I'm a hooker selling songs / And my pimp's a record label - 2018, Brendon Urie, Michael Angelakos, Sam Hollander, Morgan Kibby, Jake Sinclair, Dillon...
  2. An imprecise measure of alcoholic drink; a "slug" (of gin), or an overlarge gulp.
    • Emily had cut short these 3 A.M. glooms with a hooker of bourbon. - 1993, Herman Wouk, The Hope (novel), page 675:

Origin

Unknown. The "prostitute" sense is the subject of a folk etymology connecting it to General Hooker of the American Civil War, but the earliest known use dates to 1835, decades before the war. Less implausibly, it has also been connected to a coastal feature called a hook (“A spit or narrow cape of sand or gravel turned landward at the outer end, such as Sandy Hook in New Jersey, Red Hook in New York”) in the ports of New York and Baltimore. Carefully learned inference is not conclusive. See this essay, pp 105ff.

Forms

hookers

Derived

hookerish sweat like a hooker in church with blackjack and hookers

Noun Entry 3

  1. A small fishing boat.
    • In England there are Brighton Beach boats, Centre-board sloops, Pollywogs, Lough Erne yachts, Unas, New Brighton sailing-boats, yachts of the Norfolk Broads, Itchen, Clyde sailing and Keystone boats, Penzance luggers,...

    Synonyms: Galway Galway hooker

  2. Any antiquated craft.
    • [T]he poor Flash is gone, and there is an end of it. Poor old hooker. Hey, Almayer? You made a voyage or two with me. Wasn’t she a sweet craft? - 1896, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in An Outcast of the Islands, London: T....
    • […] for there was scarce one of us that thought the old hooker would weather so long and hard a blow. We were mighty fortunate to come through it so handily. - 1914 October – 1916 July, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Mucker,...

Origin

From Dutch hoeker, an alteration of Middle Dutch hoecboot, from hoec + boot.

Forms

hookers

Noun alt of, alternative

  1. Alternative spelling of hookah.

Forms

hookers