by hook or by crook mean?
2007-01-13 22:50:27 · 9 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
By absolutely any means whatsoever
2007-01-13 23:06:39 · answer #1 · answered by wunceinawhile 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
This phrase formerly meant "by fair means or foul", although now
it often (especially in the U.K.) means simply "by whatever
necessary means". The first recorded use is by John Wycliffe in
_Controversial Tracts_ (circa 1380). Theories include: a law or
custom in mediaeval England that allowed peasants to take as
firewood from the King's forests any deadwood that they could reach
with a shepherd's crook and cut off with a reaper's billhook;
rhyming words for "direct" (reachable with a long hook) and
"indirect" (roundabout); beginners' writing exercises, where letters
have hooks and brackets are "crooks"; and from "Hook" and "Crook",
the names of headlands on either side of a bay north of Waterford,
Ireland, referring to a captain's determination to make the haven of
the bay in bad weather using one headland or the other as a guide.
2007-01-14 01:54:19 · answer #2 · answered by Doethineb 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You will do/get something using any means possible
2007-01-13 22:55:02 · answer #3 · answered by julianewcombe999 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
By fair means or foul.One way or another.
2007-01-14 05:00:44 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Any way possible
2007-01-13 22:53:29 · answer #5 · answered by Truman 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Do anything necessary to get what you want
2007-01-13 23:03:37 · answer #6 · answered by Zoe 1 · 1⤊ 0⤋
any low down way you can get something
2007-01-13 22:54:45 · answer #7 · answered by booge 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
it can be done by any way possible
2007-01-13 22:57:35 · answer #8 · answered by Snot Me 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
to get what you want,legally or illegally.
2007-01-13 22:57:18 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋