hocker

n. a person who harangues, beseeches, or talks persuasively; a person who trades in information, gossip, or personal connections; someone who is (obnoxiously) ambitious. Subjects: English, Yiddish, Derogatory

Editorial Note: Hocker is common and well-known to yeshiva students in New York City. Related etymologically to, but not derived from, hawk ‘to embarrass, annoy, or disconcert,’ which, according to DARE, is used in Mid-Atlantic states such as North Carolina and Virginia as a synonym for hack, more commonly found in the American South and South Midlands. The noun variant of hack means “a state of embarrassment, confusion, or defeat.” The adjective hacked means “embarrassed, annoyed, cowed, flustered” and dates as far back as 1892. It’s also, therefore, related to to hack off ‘to annoy.’ A Jewish correspondent from Boston also reports using huck to mean “to nag,” probably just a pronunciation and spelling variant of the Yiddish hock. Etymological Note: < hock ‘to nag, criticize’ (According to Leo Rosten, perhaps shortened from Hok mir nit kayn chainik ‘don’t knock me a teapot’ = ‘don’t harangue me; stop nagging, annoying, or pestering me’) < Yiddish hock, hok, or hakn ‘to chop, strike, knock’ < German hack ‘to cut, chop, or strike (with a blow)’; High German hock ‘to hit, chop’

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Citations: 1996 Nancy K. Miller Bequest and Betrayal: Memoirs of a Parent’s Death (Oct. 1) p. 32 @ (Mar. 1, 2000): The father’s self-representation as Hocker confirms the son’s characterization of him, in which an authorial Roth reaches for a recognizable, if not entirely appealing, type glossed for the goyim. The writer supplies the dictionary entry in parenthesis: “Hock: a Yiddishism that in this context means to badger, to bludgeon, to hammer with warnings and edicts and pleas—in short, to drill a hole in somebody’s head with words.” 1999 Howard Pollack Aaron Copland (Mar. 1) p. 377 @ (Apr. 1, 2000): Morros and Finston, he afterward wrote Copland, were “political hockers—and the atmosphere they gave off is not fragrant. (But I’m afraid that is 95% of Hollywood.)” 2000 [ibclc@1stconnect.com] Usenet: alt.humor.jewish (May 11) “Boro Park Millionaire”: We only have 5 contestants because the other 5 got stuck in Boro Park traffic behind some hocker who triple-parked his Lexus on 13th avenue. 2003 [Yuda] Welcome to the yudaSphere (N.Y.) (June 3) “Finalizing…”: At Binyomin’s, when Senior came over to visit, he said in response to my schmoozing, “My, my, you are such a hocker!” So I flashed a smile at him and said, “how true! I have a question, though. What is a hocker?” With some deliberation, he answered me, “A hocker is…the same as a tutzuch.” 2003 Rachel Horn Yeshiva University Observer (New York City) (Nov. 4) “From The Editors Desk”: “Hocker” has since seeped into our lingo. The catch phrase has come to connote the student in the know, who rubs elbows with the higher-ups at Yeshiva, often organizing Yeshiva events and programs. The proverbial hocker at Yeshiva seems to know and be known by virtually every student. This personality type is often innocuous. Students immersed in “the hock” must be constantly aware of the fine line that distinguishes the cream of the crop from the social elite. 2004 [Nicht] The House of Hock (June 2) “Rabbis & Journalists II”: Some reporters are hockers, which may be true. However, once they begin publishing what they hock, Rabbis may be reticent to speak to them…Of course, there are Hockers which have poor information & hockers with better information…. 2004 Steven I. Weiss Fiddish (New York City) (June 3): Sem wonders if skeptical rabbis mean that the press can’t do its job, and that therefore “hockers” are the best sources of information for what the rabbis think…When it comes to the “hock” associated with those rabbis, a journalist who has a similar relationship is just as valuable as the hocker, perhaps even better in some cases I’ve been involved with, because the rabbi knows that the journalist isn’t just looking for the latest lashon hara.

Posted 11 Jun 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend

Reader comments:

Love this site. Might I comment on your etymology?

“< Yid. hock or hok ‘to nag, criticize’”

1. I would transliterate the word “hak”, according to the accepted YIVO standards. The Yiddish infinitive would be “hakn.”

2. The Yid. word “hak[n]” does not mean “to nag, criticize.” It means “to chop.” “To nag, criticize” is Yinglish. Rosten’s book, though valuable, is a Yinglish dictionary, not a Yiddish one - though the phrase “hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik” is, of course, well-attested in Yiddish.

by sholemberger 13 Jun 04, 0242 GMT

Your comments are good ones; I’ve changed the entry to reflect them.

by Grant Barrett 14 Jun 04, 1221 GMT