Word.ws English Dictionary

left hook

left hook noun: a powerful punch thrown with the left hand, typically after a jab or a straight punch.

Noun

left hook (plural left hooks)

  1. A powerful punch thrown with the left hand, typically after a jab or a straight punch.
    • I hit Stephens with a left hook followed by a looping right hand and a pulverizing left hook that caught him right on the button.2000, Ken Norton, Marshall Terrill, Mike Fitzgerald, Joe Frazier (contributor), Going the Distance, page 160
  2. (figuratively, idiomatic, occasionally) A surprise assault.
    • Just when he thought that the cross-examination was over and he'd parried the questions successfully, one of the lawyers stood up and threw a left hook that left him spluttering.

Forms of left hook

pluralleft hooks

Questions about left hook

What does left hook mean?
Left hook means a powerful punch thrown with the left hand, typically after a jab or a straight punch.
What part of speech is left hook?
Left hook is a noun.
What is the plural of left hook?
The plural of left hook is left hooks.

Words near left hook in the dictionary

  1. left fielder
  2. left fielders
  3. left fields
  4. left for dead
  5. left home
  6. left hook
  7. left hooker
  8. left hookers
  9. left hooks
  10. left ideal
  11. left ideals

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: left hook (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.

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