hooker

hooker · noun¹

From hook (verb) + -er.

hooker · noun²

Unknown. The "prostitute" sense is the subject of a folk etymology connecting it to General Hooker of the American Civil War, but the earliest known use dates to 1835, decades before the war. Less implausibly, it has also been connected to a coastal feature called a hook (“A spit or narrow cape of sand or gravel turned landward at the outer end, such as Sandy Hook in New Jersey, Red Hook in New York”) in the ports of New York and Baltimore. Carefully learned inference is not conclusive. See this essay, pp 105ff.

hooker · noun³

1. Middle Dutch · derived fromhoecboot
2. Dutch · derived fromhoeker
3. English todayhooker

From Dutch hoeker, an alteration of Middle Dutch hoecboot, from hoec + boot.

First known use, by meaning

• from 1845 A prostitute.