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hooky. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
hooky, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
hooky in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
hooky you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
Attested in 1848 in New York City. Most likely from Dutch hoekje (“nook, corner; 'spot to hide' in hide-and-seek”). Formerly, "hoekje spelen" could be used to mean "to play hide-and-seek", though the common term for the game nowadays is verstoppertje.
Noun
hooky (uncountable)
- Absence from school or work; truancy. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:truancy
Let's play hooky and go to the mall.
2006, Noire , Thug-A-Licious: An Urban Erotic Tale, New York, N.Y.: One World, Ballantine Books, →ISBN, page 101:I was already two years late getting to college. I was twenty, not eighteen like most people who were about to graduate. All that hooky playing, stealing, and getting sent to juvenile jails had set me way back.
Derived terms
Etymology 2
From hook + -y.
Adjective
hooky (comparative hookier, superlative hookiest)
- Full of hooks (in any sense).
Sew the hooky half of the Velcro on the inner side so that it doesn't pick up fluff.
2020 November 9, Gwen Ihnat, “With McCartney III, Paul McCartney offers lessons from a legendary life”, in The A.V. Club:At least the mostly instrumental kickoff “Long Tailed Winter Bird” offers a hooky acoustic guitar riff you can’t blame McCartney for hanging on to as long as he does.
- Shaped like or resembling a hook; hooked.
- (UK, slang) Dodgy; crooked; illicit.
2015, Marnie Riches, The Girl Who Wouldn't Die:Start a thing in the street and attract attention to bags full of hooky gear? No. She was smarter than that.
2016, Alan Tootill, Cole and the Clairvoyant, page 45:So I decided to put on my seediest voice and leer, and go round offering the traders the Cole line in cheap hooky goods.
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