hookup
Pluralhookups
- 1A short-lived sexual relationship, or a brief sexual encounter.
Dating apps have made casual hookups easier to arrange than ever.
What started as a one-night hookup turned into a three-year relationship.
Similarfling
Note
Slang it remains, yet it turns up comfortably in news reporting and research on dating: Jenna Wortham's New York Times piece on Grindr quotes the app's purpose as facilitating hookups that are "spontaneous and intimate." Fling is the close synonym, though a hookup can be a single encounter as well as a brief affair.
- 2A connection that links one thing to another, such as a house to the sewer line or one part of a circuit to the next.
The new washing machine needs a hot-water hookup that our old laundry room doesn't have.
Each RV site offers full hookups for water, sewer, and electricity.
Similarconnection, link
Note
The noun is made from the phrasal verb hook up, and the spelling keeps them apart: one word for the thing (a sewer hookup), two for the action (the plumber came to hook up the sewer). It also works as a modifier in front of another noun, as in hookup wire, and campgrounds count their full hookups for water, sewer and electricity.
- 3A person with whom someone has sex.
She texted her hookup to ask whether he was still coming over.
His hookup's roommate answered the door and looked surprised to see him.
Note
Here the word names the person rather than the encounter, and a possessive usually gives it away: Tyler Oakley takes slower back roads to "my hookup's house" in Binge. It is slang, so in more careful speech partner or the person's name does the job.
Practice
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Origin
A noun formed from the verb hook up.