hookah

• hooka, hooker, houka, hukka, hukkah, huqqa, huqqah

Borrowed from Hindustani حقہ / हुक़्क़ा (huqqā) and , in turn, derived from Arabic حُقَّة (ḥuqqa, “pot, jar”), from حُقّ (ḥuqq, “cavity, hollow”).^[1][2]

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈhʊ.kə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈhu.kə/, /ˈhʊ.kə/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʊkə, -uːkə
• Hyphenation: hook‧ah
• Homophone: hooker (UK, non-rhotic)

hookah (plural hookahs)

1. (recreational inhalants) A pipe with a long flexible tube that draws the smoke through water, traditionally used for smoking tobacco, which is often flavored.

   Synonyms: waterpipe, hubble-bubble, hubbly bubbly, narghile, shisha

   • 1831, The Mirror of Literature, Amusement and Instruction:

     In India, the lower orders use a hookah or hubble bubble, which is made of a cocoa-nut shell well cleaned out, having a hole through the soft eye of the shell, and another on the opposite side, a little lower down, the first of which is used for the chauffoir, and the other to suck or draw the smoke from.

   • 1890 February, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “The Story of the Bald-headed Man”, in The Sign of Four (Standard Library), London: Spencer Blackett […], →OCLC, pages 66–67:

     Our new acquaintance very deliberately coiled up the tube of his hookah, and produced from behind a curtain a very long befrogged topcoat with Astrakhan collar and cuffs.

   • 1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 18, in The Subtle Minotaur‎^[1]:

     The lounge was furnished in old English oak and big Knole settees. There were rugs from Tabriz and Kerman on the highly polished floor. […] A table lamp was fashioned from a silver Egyptian hookah.

   • 1960 July 11, Harper Lee, chapter 9, in To Kill a Mockingbird, Philadelphia, Pa., New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, →OCLC:

     When Uncle Jack caught me, he kept me laughing about a preacher who hated going to church so much that every day he stood at his gate in his dressing-gown, smoking a hookah and delivering five-minute sermons to any passers-by who desired spiritual comfort.

2. (underwater diving) A tankless surface air compressor pump and umbilical piping system that supplies air to a diving mask.

• hookah on Wikipedia.Wikipedia