hoke

Etymology 1

From Middle English hoke, from Old English hōc.

noun

1. (obsolete) Alternative form of hook

Etymology 2

From hokum.

verb

1. (slang) To ascribe a false or artificial quality to; to pretend falsely to have some quality or to be doing something, etc.
   He even checked the Thomas Cooke & Son travel people about how to get to the East End (here he was hoking a bit), learning that they were ready to advise him on how to journey to any point in the world except the East End. Then he hailed a cab and found (here he was hoking further) that the cab driver didn't know how to get there either. 1993, Reed Whittemore, Jack London: Six Literary Lives, page 70
   If we define partitions of alternative cases by means of ingeniously hoked-up properties, we can get the principle to say almost anything we like. 1999, David Lewis, 15: Humean Supervenience Debugged: Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology, volume 2, page 228
   If it be asked how we come to talk about them, the answer is: for purposes of rejecting these misbegotten creatures of sophistic imaginations, “hoked up” with such things as interest, strength, and the like, which do exist, although only outside of these combinations. 2008, Terry Penner, “12: The Forms and the Sciences in Socrates and Plato”, in Hugh H. Benson, editor, A Companion to Plato, page 179

noun

1. Something contrived or artificial.

Etymology 3

From the root of holk (“hollow cavity”). Compare Scots howk.

verb

1. (Ireland) To scrounge, to grub.
   When I hoked there, I would find / An acorn and a rusted bolt 1987, Seamus Heaney, Terminus: The Haw Lantern, published 2010, unnumbered page
   We met when I was hoking about in the rocks – just the sort of thing a virtual only child does to put in the day. 2000, John Kelly, The Little Hammer, unnumbered page