The Etymology of Hook
Hook is one of those quiet, ancient Germanic words that have hardly changed in a thousand years. Old English hōc meant a hook, an angle, or a curving projection of land (preserved today in place names like Hook of Holland and Hook in Hampshire). The Proto-Germanic ancestor *hōkaz reaches back to a Proto-Indo-European root *keg- meaning sharp or pointed, related to words like hag (originally a pointed thorn). Hook's metaphorical extensions are unusually rich: by hook or by crook (1380), to swallow the hook (1300s), off the hook (1860s, originally a fish escaping the hook, then a telephone receiver), hook a man up (1860s American slang), hooked on a drug (1925), the hook in a song (1925, jazz musicians' term for the catchy phrase), and a boxing hook (1898). Crochet (French for little hook) and hookah (Arabic huqqa, a jar — unrelated, despite the look) sometimes get confused with it.