OFF THE HOOK • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Off the hook

... it, bambina mia," he said, "it is the best game—the real game. Young fry will rise to the bait more readily; but they also wriggle off the hook much more easily. It is the old fish who, when he has it once fixed in his gills, cannot get rid of it, struggle as he may. You play your game well,—neither relaxing, nor yet too much in a hurry, and I prophesy that I shall live to see you Marchesa ...

— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... light wood upon the clay supports, and with the stick as a foundation proceeded to construct her nest. On the whole, however, there seems little variation in animal instincts. The fish will come a second time to take food off the hook, the moth will fly again into the flame, and the spider will again and again build his web over the opening, only to have it again and again torn away. But whatever may be the amount of variation within the instincts of the lower animals, in the case of man instinctive action ...

— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education