by hook or by crook
 千方百計地,不擇手段地


 crook n.
 1. A bend, turn, or curve; curvature; flexure.
    Through lanes, and crooks, and darkness.   --Phaer.
 2. Any implement having a bent or crooked end. Especially: (a) The staff used by a shepherd, the hook of which serves to hold a runaway sheep. (b) A bishop's staff of office. Cf. Pastoral staff.
    He left his crook, he left his flocks.   --Prior.
 3. A pothook. “As black as the crook.”
 4. An artifice; trick; tricky device; subterfuge.
    For all yuor brags, hooks, and crooks.   --Cranmer.
 5. Mus. A small tube, usually curved, applied to a trumpet, horn, etc., to change its pitch or key.
 6. A person given to fraudulent practices; an accomplice of thieves, forgers, etc. [Cant, U.S.]
 By hook or by crook, in some way or other; by fair means or foul.

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 Hook n.
 1. A piece of metal, or other hard material, formed or bent into a curve or at an angle, for catching, holding, or sustaining anything; as, a hook for catching fish; a hook for fastening a gate; a boat hook, etc.
 2. That part of a hinge which is fixed to a post, and on which a door or gate hangs and turns.
 3. An implement for cutting grass or grain; a sickle; an instrument for cutting or lopping; a billhook.
    Like slashing Bentley with his desperate hook.   --Pope.
 4. Steam Engin. See Eccentric, and V-hook.
 5. A snare; a trap. [R.]
 6. A field sown two years in succession. [Prov. Eng.]
 7. pl. The projecting points of the thigh bones of cattle; -- called also hook bones.
 8. Geog. A spit or narrow cape of sand or gravel turned landward at the outer end; as, Sandy Hook in New Jersey.
 By hook or by crook, one way or other; by any means, direct or indirect. --Milton. “In hope her to attain by hook or crook.” --Spenser.
 Off the hook, freed from some obligation or difficulty; as, to get off the hook by getting someone else to do the job. [Colloq.]
 Off the hooks, unhinged; disturbed; disordered. [Colloq.] “In the evening, by water, to the Duke of Albemarle, whom I found mightly off the hooks that the ships are not gone out of the river.” --Pepys.
 On one's own hook, on one's own account or responsibility; by one's self. [Colloq. U.S.] --Bartlett.
 To go off the hooks, to die. [Colloq.] --Thackeray.
 Bid hook, a small boat hook.
 Chain hook. See under Chain.
 Deck hook, a horizontal knee or frame, in the bow of a ship, on which the forward part of the deck rests.
 Hook and eye, one of the small wire hooks and loops for fastening together the opposite edges of a garment, etc.
 Hook bill Zool., the strongly curved beak of a bird.
 Hook ladder, a ladder with hooks at the end by which it can be suspended, as from the top of a wall.
 Hook motion Steam Engin., a valve gear which is reversed by V hooks.
 Hook squid, any squid which has the arms furnished with hooks, instead of suckers, as in the genera Enoploteuthis and Onychteuthis.
 Hook wrench, a wrench or spanner, having a hook at the end, instead of a jaw, for turning a bolthead, nut, or coupling.


 by hook or by crook
      adv : in any way necessary; "I'll pass this course by hook or by
            crook" [syn: by any means]