with a hook

English

Prepositional phrase

with a hook

1. (UK, slang, obsolete) Appended to a statement to indicate that one does not believe it.
   • 1864, Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, John Leech, The Comic History of England (page 255)

     […] nor did the cruel sarcasm of "Oh, yes, with a hook!" — which some courtier would throw in — divert her at all from her humble purpose.

   • 1838, Actors by Daylight, volume 1, page 176:

     Mr. Bartley thinks himself a capital speech-maker. — (Yes — with a hook.)

References

• John Camden Hotten (1873) The Slang Dictionary