hok, noun

/hɒk//hɔk/
Forms:
Also hoek.
Plurals:
hoks, hoke or hokke/ˈhɔkə/.
Origin:
Afrikaans, South African DutchShow more Afrikaans (earlier South African Dutch), enclosure for domesticated animals.
Frequently (especially formerly) in Englished form hock.
1. An enclosure for domestic animals: a pen, sty, run, hutch, or kennel; hokkie sense 1. Often with distinguishing epithet, denoting the kind of bird or animal kept in the enclosure, as calf hok, fowl hok, ostrich hok, pigeon hok, rabbit hok, etc. Also figurative, a prison cell. See also skuthok (skut sense 2).
1835 T.H. Bowker Journal. 18 Feb.Making Calf hoke.
1839 T. Shone Diary. 23 Mar.This day I made a Hock for Beauty the Cow.
1861 T. Shone Diary. 29 JuneIn the Morning he was building a calf Hock.
c1881 A. Douglass Ostrich Farming 204If kept too much in the hock — especially if it is small, and has been long in use — the calves get lousy.
[1894 E. Glanville Fair Colonist 80The cows were bellowing continuously for their calves, and, without staying to milk, he turned the latter from the hoek, or smaller kraal where they were penned, and let them suckle.]
[1894 E. Glanville Fair Colonist 188In the rear was the usual cattle-kraal and calves’-hoek, open to the skies.]
1900 H. Blore Imp. Light Horseman 304The motherly cows, in spite of past experience that man’s rules forbade such indulgence, bellowing to their calves within the narrow limits of the kalver-hok to come with them to pasture.
1911 J.F. Pentz in Farmer’s Weekly 11 Oct. 159If there are tape worms in the calf, you will see them in the ‘hok’ the next morning.
1919 J.Y. Gibson in S. Afr. Jrnl of Science July 4The cattle-kraal was furnished with a separate compartment called the kalver hok, or calves’ pen, from which they were called by name in turn.
1920 S. Black Dorp 219He has seen with his own eyes photographs of Kitchener, Sir Edward Grey and Churchill tied fast in a fowl-hok in Germany, where they are prisoners.
1925 P. Smith Little Karoo (1936) 212Aantje was driving her hens into their hock for the night.
1935 P. Smith Platkops Children 29We took him to..the hens-hock an’ the pig-stye.
1948 V.M. Fitzroy Cabbages & Cream 23We had buff birds in the duck-hock.
1948 V.M. Fitzroy Cabbages & Cream 37We relinquished the idea of a Kitchen Garden as such, and R.F. fenced off the whole area to make two hocks each for the fowls and ducks.
1951 H.C. Bosman in L. Abrahams Bekkersdal Marathon (1971) 106Just look about how careful you had to be where you put your feet down on Chris Welman’s front stoep. Half the time you didn’t know if it was a front stoep or a fowl hok.
1953 D. Jacobson Long Way from London 9My brother and I kept homing pigeons...We had a hok at the bottom of the back yard.
1958 I. Vaughan Diary 47It was a long church, when we came home Ellen said The vark has got out of its hok and is eating Masters potatos.
1964 M.G. McCoy Informant, Port Elizabeth (now Gqeberha), Eastern CapeDad and Piet got the bunny hok finished.
1967 E.M. Slatter My Leaves Are Green 120I took a couple of fowls from the hok and pushed the money under the door.
1971 Informant, LangkloofThere’s a nice ostrich hok.
1971 V. Kelly Informant, Grahamstown (now Makhanda, Eastern Cape)He opened the pigeon hok door, and all the birds came out.
1972 S. Roberts in Contrast 28 Vol.7 No.4, 8The stench from the chicken hoks was awful.
1975 S. Roberts Outside Life’s Feast 53Chickens milled about gossiping and complaining in a tiny hok.
1980 A. Fugard Tsotsi 119After a whimpering, desperate moment of indecision, he dived into a deserted fowl hok where he closed his eyes and his ears.
1982 Daily Dispatch 11 Jan. 6As for all those fancy rabbit hokke he is putting in — who ever heard of rabbit farming in this district, on that scale?
1988 W. Odendaal in Bunn & Taylor From S. Afr. 113What about your fowls, Ouma, you keep them in a hok?
1989 J. Hobbs Thoughts in Makeshift Mortuary 304Back yards filled up with old cars and lean-to shacks and fowl hoks in the make-do anarchy of places where too many people live.
1990 L. Beake Tjojo & Wild Horses 65First they did the hen-hok — and that hadn’t been clean for a while.
1991 D. Zake in South 14 Nov. 5The mere fact of being ‘shut up in a hok like an animal’ had a detrimental psychological effect on prisoners.
1993 J. Thomas in House & Leisure Nov. 50This is a world of chicken hokke and rotting Valiant Barracudas, duplicated wherever the outer skirt of a city begins to fray.
2. figurative. A shanty or hovel; hokkie sense 3.
1930 N. Stevenson Farmers of Lekkerbat 23The roof was always broken and the tin walls had parted company. In winter when..the Westhuizens indulged in free fights..in order to keep warm, it appeared as if the hok..might fall to bits and bury them from sight.
1980 Cape Times 12 Sept. 4‘When I started moving with the gang I left home. We lived in “hokke” (shanties),’ he recalls.
1984 Drum Jan. 6They had already left for another place, or they had gone to fetch reinforcements, but we trapped four of them in a ‘hok’ (shack) in the backyard.
An enclosure for domestic animals: a pen, sty, run, hutch, or kennel; hokkie sense 1. Often with distinguishing epithet, denoting the kind of bird or animal kept in the enclosure, as calf hok, fowl hok, ostrich hok, pigeon hok, rabbit hok, etc. Also figurative, a prison cell.
A shanty or hovel; hokkie sense 3.
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