What it means
Sling your hook is an old, salty British way of telling someone to clear off and go away. The hook is said to be a ship's anchor, so to sling your hook was to weigh anchor and sail off, leaving the harbour behind. Today it is just a colourful, slightly grumpy dismissal: be off with you, make yourself scarce, you are not wanted here.
Usage examples
"The landlord told the troublemakers to sling their hook."
"If you are only here to complain, you can sling your hook."
Where it comes from
Sling your hook is a phrase rooted in the British naval slang of the late seventeen-hundreds, when the merchant navy and the Royal Navy of the British Empire used the verb to sling for the action of hauling a heavy load with a sling rope around the cargo, and hook referred specifically to the ship anchor of the harbour. The full phrase to sling your hook was the order given by the captain of the vessel to weigh anchor and depart the port, attested in the logbooks of the East India Company ships of the early eighteen-hundreds. The metaphorical extension to dismiss someone from the conversation or the premises entered general British English by the mid-nineteenth century through the speech of dockworkers of London, Liverpool and Bristol, where the rough sailor vocabulary mixed with the working-class English of the port cities.
Other ways to say it
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