What does hook mean?

Definitions for hook
hʊkhook

This dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word hook.

Princeton's WordNet

  1. hooknoun

    a catch for locking a door

  2. hook, crotchetnoun

    a sharp curve or crook; a shape resembling a hook

  3. bait, come-on, hook, lure, sweetenernoun

    anything that serves as an enticement

  4. hook, clawnoun

    a mechanical device that is curved or bent to suspend or hold or pull something

  5. hooknoun

    a curved or bent implement for suspending or pulling something

  6. hook, draw, hookingnoun

    a golf shot that curves to the left for a right-handed golfer

    "he took lessons to cure his hooking"

  7. hooknoun

    a short swinging punch delivered from the side with the elbow bent

  8. hook shot, hookverb

    a basketball shot made over the head with the hand that is farther from the basket

  9. hookverb

    fasten with a hook

  10. overcharge, soak, surcharge, gazump, fleece, plume, pluck, rob, hookverb

    rip off; ask an unreasonable price

  11. crochet, hookverb

    make a piece of needlework by interlocking and looping thread with a hooked needle

    "She sat there crocheting all day"

  12. hookverb

    hit a ball and put a spin on it so that it travels to the left

  13. hook, snitch, thieve, cop, knock off, glomverb

    take by theft

    "Someone snitched my wallet!"

  14. pilfer, cabbage, purloin, pinch, abstract, snarf, swipe, hook, sneak, filch, nobble, liftverb

    make off with belongings of others

  15. hookverb

    hit with a hook

    "His opponent hooked him badly"

  16. hookverb

    catch with a hook

    "hook a fish"

  17. addict, hookverb

    to cause (someone or oneself) to become dependent (on something, especially a narcotic drug)

  18. hookverb

    secure with the foot

    "hook the ball"

  19. hook, snareverb

    entice and trap

    "The car salesman had snared three potential customers"

  20. hook, solicit, accostverb

    approach with an offer of sexual favors

    "he was solicited by a prostitute"; "The young man was caught soliciting in the park"

GCIDE

  1. Hooknoun

    (Sports) The curving motion of a ball, as in bowling or baseball, curving away from the hand which threw the ball; in golf, a curving motion in the direction of the golfer who struck the ball.

  2. Hooknoun

    (Computers) A procedure within the encoding of a computer program which allows the user to modify the program so as to import data from or export data to other programs.

  3. Hooknoun

    (Geog.) A spit or narrow cape of sand or gravel turned landward at the outer end; as, Sandy Hook in New Jersey.

Wiktionary

  1. hooknoun

    A rod bent into a curved shape, typically with one end free and the other end secured to a rope or other attachment.

  2. hooknoun

    A fishhook, a barbed metal hook used for fishing.

  3. hooknoun

    Any of various hook-shaped agricultural implements such as a billhook

  4. hooknoun

    A loop shaped like a hook under certain written letters, e.g. g and j.

  5. hooknoun

    A catchy musical phrase which forms the basis of a popular song.

    The song's hook snared me.

  6. hooknoun

    A brief, punchy opening statement intended to draw the reader or viewer into a book or play.

  7. hooknoun

    Removal or expulsion from a group or activity.

    He is not handling this job, so we're giving him the hook.

  8. hooknoun

    A type of shot played by swinging the bat in a horizontal arc, hitting the ball high in the air to the leg side, often played to balls which bounce around head height.

  9. hooknoun

    A curveball.

    He threw a hook in the dirt.

  10. hookverb

    To attach a hook to.

    Hook the bag here, and the conveyor will carry it away.

  11. hookverb

    To catch with a hook (hook a fish).

    He hooked a snake accidentally, and was so scared he dropped his rod into the water.

  12. hookverb

    To ensnare someone, as if with a hook.

  13. hookverb

    To connect (hook into, hook together).

    If you hook your network cable into the jack, you'll be on the network.

  14. hookverb

    (Usually in passive) To make addicted; to captivate.

  15. hookverb

    To play a hook shot.

  16. hookverb

    To engage in the illegal maneuver of hooking (i.e., using the hockey stick to trip or block another player)

    The opposing team's forward hooked me, but the referee didn't see it, so no penalty.

  17. hookverb

    To swerve a ball; kick a ball so it swerves or bends.

  18. hookverb

    To engage in prostitution.

    I had a cheap flat in the bad part of town, and I could watch the working girls hooking from my bedroom window.

  19. hooknoun

    A feature, definition, or coding that enables future enhancements to happen compatibly or more easily.

    We've added "user-defined" codepoints in several places and careful definitions of what to do with unknown message types as hooks in the standard to enable implementations to be both backward and forward compatible to future versions of the standard.

  20. hooknoun

    A golf shot that (for the right-handed player) curves unintentionally to the left. See draw, slice, fade

  21. hooknoun

    A basketball shot in which the offensive player, usually turned perpendicular to the basket, gently throws the ball with a sweeping motion of his arm in an upward arc with a follow-through which ends over his head. Also called hook shot.

  22. hooknoun

    A type of punch delivered with the arm rigid and partially bent and the fist travelling nearly horizontally mesially along an arc.

    The heavyweight delivered a few powerful hooks that staggered his opponent.

  23. hooknoun

    A jack (the playing card)

  24. hooknoun

    = háek

  25. Etymology: From hoke, from hoc, from hōkaz (cf. West Frisian/Dutch hoek 'hook, angle, corner', Low German, 'id.'), variant of *hakōn 'hook'. More at hake.

Samuel Johnson's Dictionary

  1. HOOKnoun

    Etymology: hoce, Saxon; hoeck, Dutch.

    This falling not, for that they had not far enough undermined it, they assayed with great hooks and strong ropes to have pulled it down. Richard Knolles.

    Like unto golden hook,
    That from the foolish fish their baits do hide. Edmund Spenser.

    My bended hook shall pierce
    Their slimy jaws. William Shakespeare, Ant. and Cleopatra.

    Though divine Plato thus of pleasures thought,
    They us with hooks and baits, like fishes, caught. John Denham.

    A shop of all the qualities that man
    Loves woman for, besides that hook of wiving,
    Fairness, which strikes the eye. William Shakespeare, Cymbeline.

    Pease are commonly reaped with a hook at the end of a long stick. John Mortimer, Husbandry.

    About the caldron many cooks accoil’d,
    With hooks and ladles, as need did require;
    The while the viands in the vessel boil’d. Fairy Queen, b. ii.

    Not that I’d lop the beauties from his book,
    Like slashing Richard Bentley with his desperate hook. Alexander Pope.

    My doublet looks,
    Like him that wears it, quite off o’ the hooks. John Cleveland.

    She was horribly bold, meddling and expensive, easily put off the hooks, and monstrous hard to be pleased again. Roger L'Estrange.

    While Sheridan is off the hooks,
    And friend Delany at his books. Jonathan Swift.

    Which he by hook or crook had gather’d,
    And for his own inventions father’d. Hudibras, p. iii.

    He would bring him by hook or crook into his quarrel. Dryd.

  2. To Hookverb

    Etymology: from the noun.

    The huge jack he had caught was served up for the first dish: upon our sitting down to it, he gave us a long account how he had hooked it, played with it, foiled it, and at length drew it out upon the bank. Joseph Addison, Spectator.

    But she
    I can hook to me. William Shakespeare, Winter’s Tale.

    There are many branches of the natural law no way reducible to the two tables, unless hooked in by tedious consequences. John Norris.

Wikipedia

  1. Hook

    A hook is a tool consisting of a length of material, typically metal, that contains a portion that is curved or indented, such that it can be used to grab onto, connect, or otherwise attach itself onto another object. In a number of uses, one end of the hook is pointed, so that this end can pierce another material, which is then held by the curved or indented portion. Some kinds of hooks, particularly fish hooks, also have a barb, a backwards-pointed projection near the pointed end of the hook to ensure that once the hook is embedded in its target, it can not easily be removed.

ChatGPT

  1. hook

    A hook is a device or tool with a curved or angled end used for catching, pulling, or holding onto something. It can also be a feature designed to attract attention or interest, such as in writing or marketing where a catchy phrase or intriguing premise serves as a 'hook' to engage the audience. In music, a hook refers to a catchy part of the song meant to draw in the listener.

Webster Dictionary

  1. Hooknoun

    a piece of metal, or other hard material, formed or bent into a curve or at an angle, for catching, holding, or sustaining anything; as, a hook for catching fish; a hook for fastening a gate; a boat hook, etc

  2. Hooknoun

    that part of a hinge which is fixed to a post, and on which a door or gate hangs and turns

  3. Hooknoun

    an implement for cutting grass or grain; a sickle; an instrument for cutting or lopping; a billhook

  4. Hooknoun

    see Eccentric, and V-hook

  5. Hooknoun

    a snare; a trap

  6. Hooknoun

    a field sown two years in succession

  7. Hooknoun

    the projecting points of the thigh bones of cattle; -- called also hook bones

  8. Hookverb

    to catch or fasten with a hook or hooks; to seize, capture, or hold, as with a hook, esp. with a disguised or baited hook; hence, to secure by allurement or artifice; to entrap; to catch; as, to hook a dress; to hook a trout

  9. Hookverb

    to seize or pierce with the points of the horns, as cattle in attacking enemies; to gore

  10. Hookverb

    to steal

  11. Hookverb

    to bend; to curve as a hook

  12. Etymology: [OE. hok, AS. hc; cf. D. haak, G. hake, haken, OHG. hko, hgo, hggo, Icel. haki, Sw. hake, Dan. hage. Cf. Arquebuse, Hagbut, Hake, Hatch a half door, Heckle.]

Wikidata

  1. Hook

    Hook is a 1991 American fantasy adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by James V. Hart and Malia Scotch Marmo. It stars Robin Williams as Peter Pan/Peter Banning, Dustin Hoffman as Captain Hook, Julia Roberts as Tinker Bell, Bob Hoskins as Smee, Maggie Smith as Granny Wendy, Caroline Goodall as Moira Banning, and Charlie Korsmo as Jack Banning. The film acts as a sequel to J. M. Barrie's 1911 novel Peter and Wendy, focusing on a grown-up Peter Pan who has forgotten his childhood. Now known as "Peter Banning", he is a successful corporate lawyer with a wife and two children. Hook kidnaps his children, and Peter must return to Neverland and reclaim his youthful spirit in order to challenge his old enemy. Spielberg began developing the film in the early 1980s with Walt Disney Productions and Paramount Pictures, which would have followed the storyline seen in the 1924 silent film and 1953 animated film. Peter Pan entered pre-production in 1985, but Spielberg abandoned the project. James V. Hart developed the script with director Nick Castle and TriStar Pictures before Spielberg decided to direct in 1989. Hook was shot entirely on sound stages at Sony Pictures Studios in Culver City, California. Although receiving negative reviews by critics at the time of its release, it was a success with audiences, grossing over $300 million worldwide, and was nominated for multiple categories at the 64th Academy Awards. It also spawned merchandise, including video games, action figures and comic book adaptations.

Chambers 20th Century Dictionary

  1. Hook

    hook, n. a piece of metal bent into a curve, so as to catch or hold anything: a snare: an advantageous hold: a curved instrument for cutting grain: a spit of land projecting into the sea, ending in a hook-shaped form.—v.t. to catch or hold with a hook: to draw as with a hook: to ensnare: (golf) to drive a ball widely to the left—also Draw.—v.i. to bend: to be curved.—adj. Hooked.—ns. Hook′edness, the state of being bent like a hook; Hook′er, he who, or that which, hooks.—adj. Hook′-nosed, having a hooked or curved nose.—n. Hook′-pin, an iron pin with hooked head used for pinning the frame of a floor or roof together.—adj. Hook′y, full of, or pertaining to, hooks.—Hook and eye, a contrivance for fastening dresses by means of a hook made to fasten on a ring or eye on another part of the dress; Hook it (slang), to decamp, make off.—By hook or by crook, one way or the other; Off the hooks, out of gear: superseded: dead; On one's own hook, on one's own responsibility. [A.S. hóc; Dut. haak, Ger. haken.]

The New Hacker's Dictionary

  1. hook

    A software or hardware feature included in order to simplify later additions or changes by a user. For example, a simple program that prints numbers might always print them in base 10, but a more flexible version would let a variable determine what base to use; setting the variable to 5 would make the program print numbers in base 5. The variable is a simple hook. An even more flexible program might examine the variable and treat a value of 16 or less as the base to use, but treat any other number as the address of a user-supplied routine for printing a number. This is a hairy but powerful hook; one can then write a routine to print numbers as Roman numerals, say, or as Hebrew characters, and plug it into the program through the hook. Often the difference between a good program and a superb one is that the latter has useful hooks in judiciously chosen places. Both may do the original job about equally well, but the one with the hooks is much more flexible for future expansion of capabilities (EMACS, for example, is all hooks). The term user exit is synonymous but much more formal and less hackish.

Dictionary of Nautical Terms

  1. hook

    There are several kinds used at sea, as boat-hooks, can-hooks, cat-hooks, fish-hooks, and the like. A name given to reaches, or angular points in rivers, such as Sandy Hook at New York.--Laying-hook. A winch used in rope-making.--Loof-tackle hooks, termed luffs. A tackle with two hooks, one to hitch into a cringle of the main or fore sail in the bolt-rope, and the other to hitch into a strap spliced to the chess-tree. They pull down the sail, and in a stiff gale help to hold it so that all the stress may not bear upon the tack.

Rap Dictionary

  1. hooknoun

    A hook, used in load of songs, is an aspect of popular or commercial music that "grabs" people and makes it easy to like like or remember the song. For example, the riff from "Son of a Preacher Man" used in Cypress Hill's "Hits from the Bong"is an example of a hook. "Check out the hook while I drop crazy rhymes" -- ???. "Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it..." - Vanilla Ice (Ice Ice Baby) Also, the word hook in Detroit(where I'm from)means the police A Gangsters Disciple's name for a Vice Lord, meaning (Hoover Over Other Kingdoms).

Suggested Resources

  1. hook

    Song lyrics by hook -- Explore a large variety of song lyrics performed by hook on the Lyrics.com website.

  2. HOOK

    What does HOOK stand for? -- Explore the various meanings for the HOOK acronym on the Abbreviations.com website.

Surnames Frequency by Census Records

  1. HOOK

    According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Hook is ranked #2680 in terms of the most common surnames in America.

    The Hook surname appeared 13,437 times in the 2010 census and if you were to sample 100,000 people in the United States, approximately 5 would have the surname Hook.

    90.1% or 12,109 total occurrences were White.
    4% or 543 total occurrences were Black.
    2.3% or 321 total occurrences were of Hispanic origin.
    1.6% or 227 total occurrences were of two or more races.
    1% or 137 total occurrences were Asian.
    0.7% or 99 total occurrences were American Indian or Alaskan Native.

British National Corpus

  1. Written Corpus Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'hook' in Written Corpus Frequency: #4356

  2. Nouns Frequency

    Rank popularity for the word 'hook' in Nouns Frequency: #2300

Usage in printed sourcesFrom: 

How to pronounce hook?

How to say hook in sign language?

Numerology

  1. Chaldean Numerology

    The numerical value of hook in Chaldean Numerology is: 3

  2. Pythagorean Numerology

    The numerical value of hook in Pythagorean Numerology is: 4

Examples of hook in a Sentence

  1. Nancy Pelosi:

    If we have a case for impeachment that's the place we will have to go, but the stronger our case is the worse the Senate will look for just letting the President off the hook.

  2. Eric Swalwell:

    I think you have to make an example out of Steven Mnuchin and William Barr first, though, you can't let them off the hook.

  3. Jeff Crowe:

    Our phones are ringing off the hook.

  4. Randy Savicky:

    Many of the families who suffered losses at Sandy Hook Elementary School were faced with being unable to bring Adam Lanza to justice or otherwise hold him or his mother accountable for what her son was able to do because of her actions.

  5. Richard Besser:

    Menthol has been a way in for the tobacco industry to hook young people on tobacco and target Black Americans. It's been intentional. It's been intentional and worked, highly effective, so to take that off the table and say' no menthol,' menthol is just another flavor. And it's a flavor that is really dangerous because it makes it easier for first-time smokers to smoke and harder for people to quit. And so getting that out of there will be a wonderful thing.

Popularity rank by frequency of use

hook#1#5613#10000

Translations for hook

From our Multilingual Translation Dictionary

  • خطاف, صنارة صيدArabic
  • кручок, крукBelarusian
  • кукаBulgarian
  • garfi, ganxo, enganxarCatalan, Valencian
  • мӏараChechen
  • hák, háček, klička, zaháknout, hákovat, připojitCzech
  • hook, krog, knage, hage, koble, få på krogen, få til at bide på, hængeDanish
  • Angelhaken, Haken, einhakenGerman
  • άγκιστρο, αγκίστριGreek
  • hokoEsperanto
  • garfio, anzuelo, gancho, engancharSpanish
  • آکج, چنگک, جا لباسی, قلاب, قلاب ماهیگیری, به قلاب وصل كردن, گير دادن قلاب، آويزان كردن, به قلاب انداختنPersian
  • kierre, koukku, kaaripallo, hukki, ongenkoukku, koukuttaa, banaanipotku, koukata, liittää, kytkeä, napata, itse, kierrepotkuFinnish
  • krókurFaroese
  • crochet, agrafe, hameçon, accrocher, ferrerFrench
  • crúcaIrish
  • dubhan, cromag, glacScottish Gaelic
  • अंकुड़ाHindi
  • horog, kampóHungarian
  • hamo, croc, uncinoInterlingua
  • kaitIndonesian
  • krókur, hakiIcelandic
  • gancio, ritornello, uncino, amo, gancetto, attirare, agganciare, adescare, inserire, connettersiItalian
  • フック, 留め金, 釣り針, ホックJapanese
  • კავი, კაუჭიGeorgian
  • 갈고리, 낚시, 낚다Korean
  • hāmusLatin
  • kablys, vąšelis, kabliukasLithuanian
  • āķis, kāsis, ķeksisLatvian
  • maka, pohau, pekapeka, matauMāori
  • хорог, кука, јадица, опашка, кроше, хорокMacedonian
  • cangkukMalay
  • haak, haken, verslavenDutch
  • skru, huke, krokeNorwegian
  • haczyk, sierpowy, hakPolish
  • volta, gancho, anzol, fisgar, engancharPortuguese
  • cârlig, agățaRomanian
  • крючок, крюк, хук, хвостик, рыболовный крючок, соединятьRussian
  • udica, kuka, удица, кукаSerbo-Croatian
  • háčik, hákSlovak
  • kljukaSlovene
  • hook, böj, krok, hake, skruv, haka, krokaSwedish
  • ndowaniSwahili
  • కొక్కి, గాలముTelugu
  • гачок, гакUkrainian
  • Chinese

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