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On the hook   /ɑn ðə hʊk/   Listen
On the hook

adjective
1.
Caught in a difficult or dangerous situation.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"On the hook" Quotes from Famous Books



... streak of something white sailing through the air. It fell with a splash into the water so close to the fish that it must have bruised its scaly side, and then, in some manner, the denizen of the stream, either in a desperate flurry, or because the blow of the white object broke its hold on the hook, was free, and with a dart scurried back into the element ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... English is to learn free-thinking. Do you know who print those books that your children are rubbing their noses in? Yankees! Oh, I doubt not they have been sharp enough to sprinkle a little of the stuff they call religion here and there in them; 'tis but the bait on the hook! But you silly 'Cadians think your children are getting education, and that makes up for every thing else. Do you know what comes of it? Discontent. Vanity. Contempt of honest labor. Your children are going to be discontented with their lot. It will soon be good-by to sunbonnets; ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable

... ensigns of their joy: and the occasion of a sudden calm, gave other diversions: Here a little artist bob'd for fish, that rising, seem'd with haste to meet their ruin: There another draws the unwilling prey, that he had betray'd on the hook, with an inviting bait: When looking up, we saw sea-birds sitting on the sail-yard, about which, one skill'd in that art having plac'd lime-twigs, made 'em his booty. Their downy feathers, the air whirl'd about: The other, the sea vainly tost too ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter

... Muadhan made ready beds of soft rushes and tops of the birch for them in the far end of the cave. And he went himself into the scrub that was near, and took a straight long rod of a quicken-tree, and he put a hair and a hook on the rod, and a holly berry on the hook, and he went up the stream, and he took a salmon with the first cast. Then he put on a second berry and killed another fish, and he put on a third berry and killed the third fish. Then he put the hook and ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory

... Marie bit her lips, but her fingers did not falter in their task. Cheap table linen, cheap collars, cheap suits or cheap something-or-other was wanted, she had no doubt. She took out the paper with the blue money order folded inside, speared the money order on the hook with others, drew her order pad closer, and began to go through the list ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower

... brought no solution of the mystery, so, being a practical young man, he cast the subject from his mind, picked up his heavy overcoat, which he had flung on the bed, and hung it up on the hook attached to the door. As he did this his hand came in contact with a tube in one of the pockets, and for a moment he imagined it was his revolver, but he found it was the metal syringe he had purchased that evening from the chemist. This set his thoughts ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr

... to one end of the rope, and then a pail was put on the hook. Then the pail was lowered into the well, down to where Grandpa Croaker was working. He filled the pail with dirt, and Bully and Bawly hauled it up ...
— Bully and Bawly No-Tail • Howard R. Garis

... in the ways of the Devil. There was nothing that I would not do. I remember one time when mother thought I was going to school but found out I was "on the hook." She decided to punish me, and that night after I had gone to sleep she came into my room and took all my clothes except my shirt. I certainly was in a fix. I had to catch for my team and I would not miss that ...
— Dave Ranney • Dave Ranney

... blending of the humorous with the romantic, an excellent example is found in the ballad of Earl Richard and the Carl's Daughter. The Princess, disguised in beggar's duds, keeps on the hook the deluded and disgusted knight, who has unwillingly taken her up behind him, and with wilful and lively wit draws for him pictures of the squalid home and fare with which she is familiar, until it is her good time and pleasure ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie

... And especially; if you Bait your ground two or three dayes before you angle, with Pellets of course Paste, Chickens-guts, Garbage, &c. Gentles anointed, and a Piece of Scarlet dipt in Honey, put them on the Hook, is an approved way. ...
— The School of Recreation (1684 edition) • Robert Howlett

... it to Plymouth, they'll only condemn it and give him another. And, as for me, I shan't have the heart to put lip to the trumpet any more when Johnny's gone. So we've chosen a word together, and locked 'em together upon that; and, by your leave, I'll hang 'em here together on the hook over your fireplace. Maybe Johnny'll come back; maybe not. Maybe, if he comes, I'll be dead an' gone, an' he'll take 'em apart an' try their music for old sake's sake. But if he never comes, nobody can separate 'em; for nobody beside knows the word. And if you marry and have sons, ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various

... after all more hooman an' satisfactory. It's opposite to the other. The gent is reesponsible for beef on the hook an' flour in the bar'l. He's got to provide the blankets, make good ag'in the household's hunger, an' see to it thar's allers wood an' water within easy throw of every camp he pitches. Beyond that, however, the gent ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... want you to get the Chief Forest Ranger, Mr. Ardmore, at Augusta. You can get his home telephone number from the night operator at the State House. This is an emergency, so rush it through," and he replaced the receiver on the hook. ...
— The Ranger Boys and the Border Smugglers • Claude A. Labelle

... the phone away and slammed it back on the hook. "All right, smart boy! That's enough!" he growled, glaring ...
— Tom Swift and the Electronic Hydrolung • Victor Appleton

... of complicity being given by the presence of the rings on the hook attached to his desk, I grieve for your sake to be obliged to dispel that illusion also. Those rings, Mr. Gryce and Mr. Inspector, were not discovered there by the girl in gray, but taken there; and hung there at the very moment your spy saw her hand ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green

... Killigrew. "If I went fishing I used to hear something like this: 'The boy slipped to the bank with the swift sureness of a young animal, and sat with long brown legs in the water while his skilful fingers fixed the bait on the hook.'" ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... what, Gerard, I never heard the like of you," answered Isel, setting her pan swinging by its chain on the hook over the fire. "You begin and end every mortal thing with our Lord, and you're saying your prayers pretty nigh all day long. Are you certain sure you've ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt



Words linked to "On the hook" :   unsafe, dangerous



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