Word.ws English Dictionary

hock

/hɒk/US/hɑk/

hock noun: a Rhenish wine, of a light yellow color, either sparkling or still, from the Hochheim region; often applied to all Rhenish wines. Also the alternative form of hawk.

hock: a Rhenish wine, of a light yellow color, either sparkling or still, from the Hochheim region; often...
Image: Malcolm Morley, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

hock (countable and uncountable, plural hocks)

  1. A Rhenish wine, of a light yellow color, either sparkling or still, from the Hochheim region; often applied to all Rhenish wines.
    • That night he strolled into the Palette Club about eleven o’clock, and found Trevor sitting by himself in the smoking-room drinking hock and seltzer.1891 [1887], Oscar Wilde, “The Model Millionaire”, in Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories
    • The dinner that they sat down to in the fly-specked dining-room was of boiled beef and carrots, with a turgid ginger pudding to follow, though Grierson went down to the cellar himself and found some dusty bottles of hock, overlooked for years because there was no demand for it in a beer-drinking...1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 158
    Synonyms:
    Hochheimer

Noun (2)

hock (countable and uncountable, plural hocks)

  1. (countable) The tarsal joint of a digitigrade quadruped, such as a horse, pig or dog.
    • Anyway, you only have one golden retriever, SWORDDOG, and she is already armed to the hocks.2013, Kazerad, Gaius: Recap goals, in: Prequel -or- Making a Cat Cry: The Adventure (webcomic), February 06 2013
  2. Meat from that part of a food animal.
  3. (countable) The hollow behind the knee.

Verb (1)

hock (third-person singular simple present hocks, present participle hocking, simple past and past participle hocked)

  1. (transitive) To disable by cutting the tendons of the hock; to hamstring; to hough.
    Synonyms:
    hamstring, hough, hox

Verb (2)

hock (third-person singular simple present hocks, present participle hocking, simple past and past participle hocked)

  1. (colloquial, transitive) To leave with a pawnbroker as security for a loan.
    • Agent Beeman (Noah Emmerich): I think we got him. / Special Agent Gaad (Richard Thomas): Who? / Agent Beeman: I-I-I don't know. The guy who killed Chris, the--the Russians, the whole damn thing maybe. / Special Agent Gaad: You want to sit down? / Agent Beeman: The guy from the salvage yard who...2013, “Only You” (20:08 from the start), in The Americans, season 1, episode 10

Noun (3)

hock (uncountable)

  1. (informal) Pawn, obligation as collateral for a loan.
    • He needed $750 to get his guitar out of hock at the pawnshop.
    • But Ford Motor Co. needs another agency, either Standard & Poor's or Moody's, to make the same upgrade before it can get its blue oval logo, factories and other assets out of hock.2012 April 25, Patty Murphy, “Business bulletin”, in Associated Press, page 10A
  2. (informal) Debt.
    • They were in hock to the bank for $35 million.
  3. (informal) Installment purchase.
    • Later, Uncle Doc bought a couch on hock, then a bed.2007, Tara Hanks, The Mmm Girl: Marilyn Monroe, by Herself, page 28
  4. (informal) Prison.

Verb (3)

hock (third-person singular simple present hocks, present participle hocking, simple past and past participle hocked)

  1. (US, informal) To bother; to pester; to annoy incessantly.

Noun (4)

hock (plural hocks)

  1. (informal) The last card turned up in the game of faro.

Proper noun capitalized: Hock

Hock

  1. A surname.

Also used as

hock is also the alternative form of hawk.

hock meaning in Vietnamese

hock in Vietnamese

hollow of the knee
khoeo chân

Examples of hock in a sentence

  • Her necklace is in hock in order to cover some family expenses.
  • Stop already hocking us to be good! hocking us to be nice!
  • Cornmeal, gunpowder, ham hocks and guitar strings!

All 15 example sentences with hock

Synonyms of hock

Forms of hock

Noun
pluralhocks
Verb
third-person singular presenthocks
present participlehocking
past participlehocked
pasthocked
alternative formhak

Plural of hock: hocks

Origin of hock

Clipping of hockamore, from German.

From Middle English hough, hoche, hokke, from Old English hōh, from Proto-West Germanic *hą̄h, from Proto-Germanic *hanhaz, from Proto-Indo-European *kenk-. See also West Frisian hakke, Dutch hak, German Low German Hacke, Hack (“heel”); also Lithuanian ki̇̀nka (“leg, thigh, knee-cap”), kenklė̃ (“knee-cap”), Sanskrit कङ्काल (kaṅkāla, “skeleton”).

From the phrase in hock, circa 1855-60, from Dutch hok (“hutch, hovel, jail, pen, doghouse”). Compare also Middle English hukken (“to sell; peddle; sell at auction”), see huck.

Words formed from hock

Phrases with hock

Words that rhyme with hock

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hock

What does hock mean?
Hock means a Rhenish wine, of a light yellow color, either sparkling or still, from the Hochheim region; often applied to all Rhenish wines.
What is hock in Vietnamese?
Hock in Vietnamese is khoeo chân. See Hock meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is hock?
Hock can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hock?
Hock is pronounced /hɒk/ (UK).
What is the plural of hock?
The plural of hock is hocks.

Words near hock in the dictionary

  1. hochwohlgeboren
  2. hoci-poci
  3. hocicudo
  4. Hocine
  5. Hocines
  6. hock
  7. hock lock
  8. hock locks
  9. Hock Monday
  10. Hock process
  11. Hock tide

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hock (page history and authors); Hock (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hock.wav.

Cite this entry: “hock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.