An informal American term for a pawnshop — the kind of place where you trade your guitar, old jewelry, or gaming console for quick cash, hoping to buy it back later (you usually don't). While "pawnshop" is the dominant term today, "hockshop" has a grittier, older-school ring to it that fits blues lyrics and hardboiled fiction perfectly. To "hock" something is to pawn it, and the shop where that transaction goes down is the hockshop.
He took his grandfather's watch down to the hockshop on Fifth and walked out with enough for two weeks' rent.
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(US, rare) A pawnshop.
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Regional slang from around the English-speaking world — British, Australian, Irish, Caribbean, Nigerian, Filipino, AAVE, and the hyphenated-English dialects that make the internet sound local.
See all Regional & Other slang on Slangora.