in hock

1 having been pawned.

2 constrained by an onerous obligation.

☞ Hock here comes from the Dutch word hok meaning 'hutch' or 'prison'. Originally mid-19th-century US slang, this sense of hock is now found only in this phrase or, occasionally, in out of hock.

❷ 2019 Will HuttonObserver America First nationalism, indulgent free market economics, Republican libertarianism and a political system in hock to corporate lobbying has just contributed to killing 356 innocent people.