hook-and-ladder company

[ hook-uhn-lad-er kuhm-puh-nee ]

noun

1. ladder company ( def ).

Word History and Origins

Origin of hook-and-ladder company¹

An Americanism dating back to 1815–25

Example Sentences

It came to Daniel J. Meagher, of whom I spoke as foreman of Hook-and-Ladder Company No. 3, when, in the midnight hour, a woman hung from the fifth-story window of a burning building, and the longest ladder at hand fell short ten or a dozen feet of reaching her.

From Project Gutenberg

It was borrowed from the hook-and-ladder company, which made all its calls in a body, and in two of Kipp and Brown’s stages, hired for the entire day.

From Project Gutenberg

And although he became foreman of a juvenile hook-and-ladder company before he was five, and would not play with girls at all, he had one peculiar feminine weakness.

From Project Gutenberg

The hose-cart, propelled by a pair of stout legs, made a gallant dash down the edge of the garden, followed by the hook-and-ladder company, their equipment just three feet long.

From Project Gutenberg

The last he saw of the cab or of the cabman was near the house of the hook-and-ladder company east of the French Market.

From Project Gutenberg