in hock

English

Prepositional phrase

in hock

1. Having been pawned.

   Her necklace is in hock in order to cover some family expenses.

2. (figurative, by extension, transitive with to) Indebted.
   • 2022 June 5, Ezra Klein, “Your Kids Are Not Doomed”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     The wind doesn’t stop blowing because an autocrat has a tantrum; harnessing the solar radiation that bathes our world doesn’t leave us in hock to the House of Saud.