hocker
n.— «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.”» —by Nancy K. Miller Bequest and Betrayal: Memoirs of a Parent’s Death Oct. 1, 1996. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
In the 15th century, the word respair meant “to have hope again.” Although this word fell out of use, it’s among dozens collected in a new book of soothing vocabulary for troubled times. Plus, baseball slang: If a batter...
Asthenosphere, a geologist’s term for the molten layer beneath the earth’s crust, sparks a journey that stretches all the way from ancient Greece to the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Plus: What the heck is a dogberg? It’s when...