off the hooks

prepositional phrase

Unhinged; disturbed; disordered.

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Meanings

prepositional phrase
  1. colloquialUnhinged; disturbed; disordered.

    In the evening, by water, to the Duke of Albemarle, whom I found mightily off the hooks that the ships are not gone out of the river.

    1665 June 4 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “May 26th, 1665”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume V, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1895, →OCLC
    1 more example

    Or was Erskine out of his mind? And he himself Watt was he not perhaps slightly deranged? And Mr. Knott himself, was he quite right in his head? Were they not all three perhaps a little off the hooks?

    1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, [Paris]: Olympia Press, →OCLC
  2. archaiccolloquialSuperseded.
  3. archaiccolloquialDead.
Cite this entry
APA

off the hooks. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/off%20the%20hooks

MLA

“off the hooks.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/off%20the%20hooks. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “off the hooks,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/off%20the%20hooks.

Source: off the hooks on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.