Hooker Definition

Origin of Hooker

• 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. More plausibly, 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 this essay, pp 105ff.

  From Wiktionary

• Dutch hoeker from Middle Dutch hoeckboot hoec fishhook keg- in Indo-European roots boot boat

  From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

• Probably from the hook-like form of the arm taken in raising a drink to the mouth

  From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

• hook (“(verb)”) +‎ -er

  From Wiktionary