hawkshaw
(ˈhɔːkʃɔː)
Also Hawkshaw.
[Name of a detective in The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1863), a play by Tom Taylor, English dramatist (1817–1880); also in the comic strip Hawkshaw the Detective, by Gus Mager, American cartoonist (d. 1956).]
A detective; also attrib.
| [c 1863 T. Taylor in M. R. Booth Eng. Plays in 19th Cent. (1969) II. 77 The Ticket-of-Leave Man... Cast..Hawkshaw, a detective.] 1903 ‘H. McHugh’ Back to Woods iii. 59 He didn't even whimper when the village Hawkshaw snapped the bracelets on his wrist. 1942 Berrey & Van den Bark Amer. Thes. Slang §460/18 Hawk, hawkshaw, heavy foot, hot hand. 1967 N. Mailer Cannibals & Christians i. 40 The hawkshaw geist of the F.B.I. 1968 Listener 15 Feb. 214/1 A ‘Treasury hawkshaw’, charged with seizing and selling up Confederate cotton. 1973 R. Travers Murder in Blue Mountains x. 96 The ‘Hawkshaws from the Antipodes’ as the [San Francisco] Bulletin called Roche and his men. |