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By hook or by crook   /baɪ hʊk ɔr baɪ krʊk/   Listen
By hook or by crook

adverb
1.
In any way necessary.  Synonym: by any means.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"By hook or by crook" Quotes from Famous Books



... Fontenoy are gone out; everybody nowadays only tries to get the first fire, by hook or by crook. Ours is an age of cowardice and cuirassed cannon; chivalry is ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... you mean, sir? Wouldn't you be only too thankful to crawl into the houses of your betters, any how, by hook or by crook? Ha! ha! I know you would. It's always the way with you common folk, you rioters, you revolutionists. By the Lord! I ...
— John Halifax, Gentleman • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik

... batch of enemies. Even a small German town is seldom without its Liszt-pupil, and in Leipzig several were settled, none of whom had ever heard of Martin Schrievers. They refused to admit him to their jealous clique. In their opinion, he belonged to that goodly class of persons, who, having by hook or by crook, contrived to spend an hour in the Abbe of Weimar's presence, afterwards abused the sacred narre of pupil. He was hated by these chosen few with more vigour than by the conservative pedagogues, who, naturally enough, saw the ruin of art ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... manage somehow," said Squire O'Shanaghgan; "and we have three months all but a week to turn round in. We'll manage by hook or by crook. Don't you fret your pretty little head. I wouldn't have a frown on the brow of my colleen for fifty O'Shanaghgans, and that's plain enough. I couldn't ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade

... secured, and an inducement is thus held out to him to obtain a conviction, if possible; but it is of a piece with legislative procedure in general. Lawyers are not engaged in academic discussions or in the pursuit of truth, but each is trying, by hook or by crook, to make out a particular case without regard to its actual truth or even to the lawyer's own belief on the subject. That is what produces so much friction between lawyers and scientific witnesses; neither ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman

... answer, "what simplicity in you to think so! If you have not broken one commandment, let us see whether we cannot convict you of the breach of another. If you are not a swindler or forger, you are guilty of arson or burglary. By hook or by crook you shall not escape. Are you to suffer or I? What does it matter to you who are going off the stage, to receive a slight additional daub upon a character so deeply stained already? But think of me, the immaculate lover of Truth, ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman

... the scarcity of private carriages. In fact, the German does not make as much of animals as the Englishman does. If he lives in the country, or if he means to be a man of fashion, he will have dogs and horses, but he will not have one or both, by hook or by crook, whether he is rich or poor, as the Briton does. You see dogs in any German city that remind you of a paragraph that once appeared in an Italian paper, a paragraph about a case of dog stealing. The dog was produced in court, said the paper, and ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... a brave soldier, although the flavor of bushwhacking clung to his war record; he was a fast friend and a generous foe; what one hand got by hook or by crook—chiefly, it is to be feared, by crook—the other made haste ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... is more difficult—is that we should obtain by hook or by crook a plan of the fortifications." And he looked ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini

... assuredly foreclose. Then the place would be Keane's or Gerty's, it was much the same. Keane really meant it to be Sir Digby's and Gerty's, while he, Keane, should live and be honoured and respected there—his son-in-law a lord. Richards thought he must try by hook or by crook to prevent his partner from foreclosing, if only for the following reason: if Grantley Hall once passed into Keane's hands, much though Gerty and Jack loved each other, the latter, being a Mackenzie and a Scot, would be far too ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables



Words linked to "By hook or by crook" :   by any means



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