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Off the hook   Listen
adjective
off the hook  adj.  No longer considered responsible; as, Jack admitted breaking the vase, so Jill is off the hook. Used in various situations, with reference to responsibility to perform an action, or guilt for some misdeed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Off the hook" Quotes from Famous Books



... I have one!" Bert suddenly shouted, and he, too, landed a good-sized fish. It was taken off the hook, and strung on a willow twig, and then, fastened so it could not swim away, it was put back into the water to keep fresh until it was time ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at Meadow Brook • Laura Lee Hope

... but Mr. Astor would not yet allow himself to pause in his undertaking. He determined to send the Enterprise to sea alone, and let her take the chance of making her unprotected way across the ocean. Just at this time, however, a British force made its appearance off the Hook; and the port of New York was effectually blockaded. To send a ship to sea under these circumstances, would be to expose her to almost certain capture. The Enterprise was, therefore, unloaded and dismantled, and Mr. Astor was obliged to comfort himself with the hope ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving

... was perfectly delightful while it lasted. Was there ever a woman, since the world began, who did not know that sensation, either by experience or by wishing she might try it? What pleasure would there be in angling if the fish did not try to get off the hook, but stupidly swallowed it, fly and all? It might as well crawl out of the stream at once and lay itself meekly ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford

... parlor. It was still dark, although it was nearly eight o'clock, and nobody saw us go out together. Just as we left I heard the chef in the kitchen bawling out that he'd murder whoever put the kettle against the bell, and Tillie saying it must have dropped off the hook and landed there. ...
— Where There's A Will • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... quickly, in fact the beauty depends upon the rapid manipulation of the sugar over the hook; keep the eye fixed on the color; as soon as it becomes a glossy satin with a close grain it is finished; lift it off the hook immediately and return to the slab for casing. Do not carry on the pulling operation until it becomes spongy, and be careful not to use too much color; the tints should be light and delicate when finished. Machines are made for cutting buttercups, ...
— The Candy Maker's Guide - A Collection of Choice Recipes for Sugar Boiling • Fletcher Manufacturing Company

... most beautiful catch," said the colonel, "and then what I thought, at first, was the embodied spirit of Izaak Walton suddenly came zipping into the water just as Shag was about to land the beauty, and knocked it off the hook. Since then I have been informed by my servant that it was no ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele

... circumstance, nor will any one wonder that Natura behaved in the manner he did, in the first emotions of a rage, which might very well be justified by the cause that excited it.—Not having a sword on, he flew to the chimney, on each side of which hung a pistol; he snatched one off the hook, and was going to revenge the injury he had received on one or both the guilty persons, when the minister, stepping between, beat down that arm which held the instrument of death, crying at the same time, 'What, are you a madman!—would you to punish ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... had just been slaughtered, and was hanging on the hook; but it got off the hook alive and well and followed her; and the oxen, though they were ploughing, trailed the plough with them and did her bidding. So she fled to the lake again, they following her, and with them plunged ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)

... 'As long as I get twenty crowns out of them, I'll sell them the value of it.' But then I had other things in my heart, which I'll tell you about now. I came across one of your cavalrymen smoking his pipe near my dike, just behind my barn. I went and took my scythe off the hook, and I came back with short steps from behind, while he lay there without hearing anything. And I cut off his head with one stroke, like a feather, while he only said 'Oof!' You have only to look at the bottom of the pond; you'll find him there in a coal ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... out his hand for the key and found that a bunch of other keys were now hanging over it. When he removed them they jingled slightly, and then his heart stood still, but the Father did not stir, and he took the key of the gate off the hook, put the other keys back in their place, ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... the company's publicity man, who had become a friend of mine, I went on the health officer's tug down the Bay to meet her, on the coldest, darkest night I've ever known on water. Shortly after nine o'clock the big boat's light gleamed off the Hook and she bore down upon us. She came close, slowed down and towered by our side, weird as a ghost with snow and ice in glimmering sheets on her steel sides. She did not stop. We caught a rope ladder and scrambled up, and at once we felt ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole



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