Noun

(label) A long, straight stick, especially one used to assist in walking.

*{{quote-book, year=1927, author= F. E. Penny

, chapter=4, title= Pulling the Strings , passage=The case was that of a murder. It had an element of mystery about it, however, which was puzzling the authorities. A turban and loincloth soaked in blood had been found; also a staff .}}

A series of horizontal lines on which musical notes are written.

(label) The employees of a business.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=December 16, author=Denis Campbell, work=Guardian

, title= Hospital staff 'lack skills to cope with dementia patients' , passage=Most staff do not have the skills to cope with such challenging patients, who too often receive "impersonal" care and suffer from boredom, the first National Audit of Dementia found. It says hospitals should introduce "dementia champions".}}

(label) A mixture of plaster and fibre used as a temporary exterior wall covering.

A pole, stick, or wand borne as an ensign of authority; a badge of office.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

Methought this staff , mine office badge in court, / Was broke in twain.

*Sir (c.1564-1627)

All his officers brake their staves'; but at their return new ' staves were delivered unto them.

A pole upon which a flag is supported and displayed.

(label) The rung of a ladder.

* Dr. J. Campbell (E. Brown's Travels)

I ascend at one [ladder] of six hundred and thirty-nine staves .

A series of verses so disposed that, when it is concluded, the same order begins again; a stanza; a stave.

* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)

Cowley found out that no kind of staff is proper for an heroic poem, as being all too lyrical.

(label) An arbor, as of a wheel or a pinion of a watch.

(label) The grooved director for the gorget, or knife, used in cutting for stone in the bladder.

(label) An establishment of officers in various departments attached to an army, to a section of an army, or to the commander of an army. The general's staff consists of those officers about his person who are employed in carrying his commands into execution.

Noun

(en noun)

A rod bent into a curved shape, typically with one end free and the other end secured to a rope or other attachment.

A fishhook, a barbed metal hook used for fishing.

Any of various hook-shaped agricultural implements such as a billhook

* Alexander Pope

like slashing Bentley with his desperate hook

* 1819 , Keats,

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;

That part of a hinge which is fixed to a post, and on which a door or gate hangs and turns.

A loop shaped like a hook under certain written letters, e.g. g'' and ''j .

A catchy musical phrase which forms the basis of a popular song.

The song's hook snared me.

A brief, punchy opening statement intended to get attention from an audience, reader, or viewer, and make them want to continue to listen to a speech, read a book, or watch a play.

A tie-in to a current event or trend that makes a news story or editorial relevant and timely.

(informal) Removal or expulsion from a group or activity.

He is not handling this job, so we're giving him the hook .

(cricket) A type of shot played by swinging the bat in a horizontal arc, hitting the ball high in the air to the leg side, often played to balls which bounce around head height.

(baseball) A curveball.

He threw a hook in the dirt.

(software) A feature, definition, or coding that enables future enhancements to happen compatibly or more easily.

''We've added "user-defined" codepoints in several places and careful definitions of what to do with unknown message types as hooks in the standard to enable implementations to be both backward and forward compatible to future versions of the standard.

(golf) A golf shot that (for the right-handed player) curves unintentionally to the left. See draw, slice, fade

(basketball) A basketball shot in which the offensive player, usually turned perpendicular to the basket, gently throws the ball with a sweeping motion of his arm in an upward arc with a follow-through which ends over his head. Also called hook shot.

(boxing) A type of punch delivered with the arm rigid and partially bent and the fist travelling nearly horizontally mesially along an arc.

The heavyweight delivered a few powerful hooks that staggered his opponent.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=December 18 , author=Ben Dirs , title=Carl Froch outclassed by dazzling Andre Ward , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=American Ward was too quick and too slick for his British rival, landing at will with razor sharp jabs and hooks and even bullying Froch at times.}}

(slang) A jack (the playing card)

(typography, rare) A .

* 2003 , Language Issues XV–XVIII, page 36

Common diacritics in Slavonic language are the hook' ? (as in ha'''?'''ek – Czech for ‘hook’) and the stroke ´ (robi' ? – Polish for ‘do/make’).

* 2003 , David Adams, The Song and Duet Texts of , page 168

In Czech, palatalization is normally indicated by the symbol ?, called ha?ek or “hook .”

* 2004 , Keesing’s Record of World Events L:i–xii, page unknown

In detailing the proposed shortening of the Czech Republic to ?esko…the hook (hacek) erroneously appeared over the letter “e” instead of the “C”.

(Scrabble) An instance of playing a word perpendicular to a word already on the board, adding a letter to the start or the end of the word to form a new word.

* '>citation

(bowling) A ball that is rolled in a curved line.

* '>citation

(bridge, slang) A finesse.

A snare; a trap.

(Shakespeare)

A field sown two years in succession.

(in the plural) The projecting points of the thighbones of cattle; called also hook bones.