hooker

Meaning

Noun

• One who, or that which, hooks.
• A small fishing boat.
• Any antiquated craft.
• A player who hooks the ball out of the scrum with his foot.
• A batsman or batswoman adept at or fond of playing hook shots.
• A crocheter.
• Synonym of hook
• A thief who uses a pole with a hook on the end to steal goods.
• A prostitute.
• An imprecise measure of alcoholic drink; a "slug" (of gin), or an overlarge gulp.
• Alternate spelling of hookah

Related

Similar words

• angler, nuthook

Origin

• From hook + -er.
• Unknown; The "prostitute" sense is the subject of a folk etymology connecting it to US Civil War general General Hooker, but the earliest known use dates to 1835. Less implausibly, it has also been connected to coastal features called hook in the ports of New York and Baltimore. Careful learned inference is not conclusive. See , pp 105ff.