Definition of "pothook" [pot•hook]

• A bent or hooked piece of iron for hanging a pot or kettle over a fire. (noun)
• A curved iron rod with a hooked end used for lifting hot pots, irons, or stove lids. (noun)
• A curved, S-shaped mark made in writing. (noun)
• Illegible handwriting or aimless scribbling. Often used in the plural. (noun)
• Informal Stenographic writing. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "It was registered as the "pothook" brand, but it was known far and side as the "straddle bug.""
• "The undue compression of type laterally, the exaggeration of thick and thin, the feeble pothook terminations in modern type are due to one form of degeneration being added upon another for some centuries, a tracing of a tracing."
• "Spiller looked in the pot suspended from a pothook over the fire."