hook Jack v phr NEng, esp MA =hook school.1877 Bartlett Americanisms 294, Hook Jack. To play truant. New England. 1892 DN 1.212 NEng, I was familiar in my boyhood with the expressions to play hookey and hook Jack. Ibid 216 Boston MA (as of 1840–50), I was born and brought up on Fort Hill, Boston . . and in all the period from 1840–1850 the current phrase among the boys was to hook Jack. 1913 Boston Herald (MA) 20 May 10/5 ceMA (as of 1860s), “Playing Hookey,” Etc. . . When I was a boy in Chelsea in the late sixties, we used to say, “Hook Jack,” but before that in Eastport, Me., we used to say, “Sky Jack.” 1949 Kurath Word Geog. 23, The Plymouth–Cape Cod area has preserved rather few unique expressions, among them . . hooked Jack . . for ‘played hookey’. Ibid fig 158 (Played Truant) 6 infs, Boston and eMA, Hooked Jack. 1967–68 DARE (Qu. JJ6, To stay away from school without an excuse) Inf MA33, Hook Jack; my kids say “skip school”.