Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To pawn.
  • noun The state of being pawned.
  • noun The state of being in debt.
  • noun Rhine wine.
  • noun The tarsal joint of the hind leg of certain quadrupeds, such as horses and dogs, corresponding to the human ankle but bending in the opposite direction.
  • noun A joint in the leg of a domestic fowl similar to the hock of a quadruped.
  • noun A small cut of meat, especially ham, from the front or hind leg directly above the foot.
  • transitive verb To disable by cutting the tendons of the hock; hamstring.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A variant of hack.
  • noun Originally, the wine Hochheimer (which see).
  • noun Any white German wine.
  • noun A caterpillar.
  • To ham-string; disable by cutting the sinew or tendon of the hock —that is the tendo Achillis.
  • noun Mallow; hollyhock.
  • noun An old game of cards.
  • noun The joint on the hind leg of a quadruped between the knee and the fetlock, corresponding to the ankle-joint in man; that part of the leg between the tibia and the cannon-bone, consisting of the ankle-bones more or less completely united.
  • noun In man, the back part of the knee-joint; the ham.
  • noun In the game of faro, the last card remaining in the box after all the others have been dealt.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The joint in the hind limb of quadrupeds between the leg and shank, or tibia and tarsus, and corresponding to the ankle in man.
  • noun A piece cut by butchers, esp. in pork, from either the front or hind leg, just above the foot.
  • noun The popliteal space; the ham.
  • noun A Rhenish wine, of a light yellow color, either sparkling or still. The name is also given indiscriminately to all Rhenish wines.
  • noun The state of having been pawned; usually preceded by in.
  • noun The state of being in debt.
  • transitive verb To disable by cutting the tendons of the hock; to hamstring; to hough.
  • transitive verb To pawn.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb US To bother; to pester; to annoy incessantly
  • noun The tarsal joint of a digitigrade quadruped, such as a horse, pig or dog.
  • noun Meat from that part of a food animal.
  • verb transitive To disable by cutting the tendons of the hock; to hamstring; to hough.
  • verb transitive, colloquial To leave with a pawnbroker as security for a loan.
  • noun Pawn, obligation as collateral for a loan.
  • noun Debt.
  • noun Installment purchase.
  • noun Prison.
  • noun A Rhenish wine, of a light yellow color, either sparkling or still, from the Hochheim region, but often applied to all Rhenish wines.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb leave as a guarantee in return for money
  • noun any of several white wines from the Rhine River valley in Germany (`hock' is British usage)
  • verb disable by cutting the hock
  • noun tarsal joint of the hind leg of hoofed mammals; corresponds to the human ankle

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from Dutch hok, prison.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Short for obsolete Hockamore, alteration of German Hochheimer, from Hochheim, a town of west-central Germany.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English hokke, from Old English hōh, heel.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English hoch, hough, hocke, from Old English hōh, from Proto-Germanic *hanhaz (cf. West Frisian hakke, Dutch hak, Low German Hack), from Proto-Indo-European *kenk (cf. Lithuanian kìnka ‘leg, thigh, knee-cap’, kenklė̃ ‘knee-cap’, Sanskrit कङ्काल (kaṅkāla) ‘skeleton’)

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

(Can we verify(+) this etymology?) From Dutch hok ("prison, debt").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From hockamore, from the name of the German town of Hochheim am Main.

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Examples

  • What part of we are bankrupt, broke and in hock to China don't they understand.

    Potential 2012 candidates knock Obama on missile defense 2009

  • And while the next UK government may be in hock to bad ideas and fail to deliver such growth, it will face few structural impediments to implementing its ideas about what needs to be done.

    Matthew Yglesias » Department of Exaggeration 2010

  • At least one resident has been suggesting for a few weeks now that it would cheaper to build a new soccer-specific stadium for the Timbers somewhere -- say, at the Expo Center -- and leave the Beavers minor league baseball team in PGE Park, which is still about $28 million in hock from a recent renovation.

    Leave the Beavers -- move the Timbers? (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009

  • At least one resident has been suggesting for a few weeks now that it would cheaper to build a new soccer-specific stadium for the Timbers somewhere -- say, at the Expo Center -- and leave the Beavers minor league baseball team in PGE Park, which is still about $28 million in hock from a recent renovation.

    Jack Bog's Blog: June 2009 Archives 2009

  • Not to go all xenophobic, but I would rather have the money come from us rather than be in hock to a country that doesn't have the same outlook on basic forms of human rights that we do -- or at least aspire to.

    Get Serious About Taxes 2009

  • I'll be in hock to the printer ink company but at least certain things will be available even by candlelight.

    Jean's Knitting Jean 2009

  • The ruddbot is in hock to the mining unions and the miners whereas Abbot only represents the miners. methinks this puts the Ruddbot in a weaker postion.

    Cheeseburger Gothic » The sky is not falling! The sky is not falling! 2009

  • Because it's almost as wide as the Taconic State Parkway, I thought I ran an even greater risk than usual of caroming off the roadway's guardrails and rock faces and spending the rest of my life in hock as I tried to repay Range Rover for the repairs.

    Driving Like the Other Half Ralph Gardner Jr. 2010

  • The Obama inner circle hasn't yet been able to wrest control of the agency from all those career scientists, who apparently are in hock to industry.

    Jon Entine: With the European Union and a Slew of New Studies Reaffirming the Safety of BPA, At What Point Will the Science Prevail? Jon Entine 2010

  • Mind you, I'm lucky I suppose as my biz is not in hock to the banks.

    "a few green shoots" Not a sheep 2009

Comments

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  • What one does to a loogie

    October 11, 2007

  • Here it comes...

    October 11, 2007

  • I grew up near a street named Hockersville Road, and this is what I always thought of. *distressed*

    October 11, 2007

  • Must have been in PA. *smirk*

    October 11, 2007

  • "I believe I've sprained my hock," wailed Ebenezer. "Left hind leg." And he rebrayed his bray of pain.

    - William Steig, Farmer Palmer's Wagon Ride

    September 29, 2008

  • Also, pawning.

    November 10, 2008

  • love that Chiefly British def!

    July 30, 2010

  • The person who recorded the disgusting sound effect was thinking of the word "hawk". Hawk is what one "does to a loogie".

    May 16, 2012

  • It is a variant of hack, but there are a couple definitions over on hawk that seem to support that word's use when loogie-ing (looging?).

    May 16, 2012

  • Those of us who do not pronounce "hawk" the same as "hock" prefer to "hock" a loogie. Were we to "hawk" one, we would wait in vain for buyers.

    May 21, 2012