Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. One who wanders from place to place without a permanent home or a means of livelihood.
- n. A migrant worker.
- v. To live or wander like a vagrant.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A tramp.
Wiktionary
- n. A homeless, usually penniless person, in some way associated with a life along the rails.
- n. A migratory laborer
- n. pejorative A tramp, vagabond; hence bum
- v. intransitive To be a hobo, tramp, bum etc.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. United States A professional tramp; one who spends his life traveling from place to place, esp. by stealing rides on trains, and begging for a living.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a disreputable vagrant
Etymologies
- Possibly a contraction of ho, boy or English dialect hawbuck ("lout, clumsy fellow, country bumpkin"). (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Meanwhile, enigmatic women dressed in hobo chic execute dance and aerial moves.”
The Washington Post: Creative Cirko De Mente evokes . . . well, it's hard to say
“Then you have some hobo from the female species on here begging people to vote democratic or independent in 2012.”
“Then there are places like the quarries at Rutland, Vermont, where the hobo is exploited, the unearned energy in his body, which he has accumulated by "battering on the drag" or "slamming gates," being extracted for the benefit of that particular community.”
“I didn't see Bat Guano use the term "hobo" - that seems to be your little editorial addition to the conversation.”
“At the same time, as a lover of pubs and clubs, gigs and parties, I'd have to say that the vibrant indie scene focused around the West End (Glasgow's East Village) quite simply rocks, at least as far as this "pomo boho homo hobo" is concerned.”
“alongside their own label hobo, here you'll find international designers from the far reaches of denmark to brazil. may not post new threads you may not”
“And while there are always going to be those who cry foul at any depiction of a woman as a sex object, the hobo is the least likely sex object in the history of cinema.”
The Huffington Post: Turnstyle: Bindlestiffs: A Raunchy Teen Comedy Made By Teens
“Not exactly what we used to call a hobo dinner, is it?”
“For example, in 1997 my friend (and then coworker) Ross Raihala was interviewing Art Linkletter, and Linkletter became upset when Ross used the terms hobo and bum interchangeably (apparently, Linkletter had worked as a hobo in his twenties and found the word bum to be mildly offensive).”
“But it was compassion for the homeless that prompted one man to invent what some are calling the hobo condo on wheels.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘hobo’.
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Americanism
American words
finest, fast food, acclimate, aluminum, alphabetize, airplane, affirmative action, arugula, backhoe, bangs, base board, bayou and 162 more...
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Contemporary character classes?
as a youth I, and some others, made a pen-and-paper RPG, based in contemporary crime and suspense fiction + nonfiction, set in America's blighted urban centers, anonymous slurbs, and godforsaken hi...
acrobat, actor, anarchist, arsonist, artist, bagman, accountant, adrenaline junkie, airplane pilot, anti-racist skinhead, art student, assassin and 192 more...
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Words that can be spelled on an upsid...
Imagine my joy when I was wearing my calculator watch and was first introduced to someone named Leslie - there was exactly enough room on the display for 317537.14.
Edit: I've discove...hi, hello, leslie, sheesh, she, bells, hells, hog, boss, goggles, he, bob and 233 more...
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Origin unknown
bamboozle, ballyhoo, banter, bludgeon, chad, cocktail, culvert, curmugeon, dildo, dude, dweeb, dyke and 51 more...
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Hobs
hob, hobby, hobbyhorse, hobnob, hobanob, hob and nob, Hob Collingwood, hobble, Calvin and Hobbes, hobbledygee, Hobby-lanthorn, hobbit and 41 more...
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Fashionista
Clothing styles & subcultures...
dandy, boho, mod, goth, emo, punk, grunge, hipster, pimp, lolita, preppy, metal and 22 more...
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on the road again
nomad, itinerant, wanderer, gypsy, vagrant, ranger, floater, gadling, scatterling, landloper, wayfarer, rover and 59 more...
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words that sound musical but aren't
kettlebells, g-string, eardrum, codaphone, notochord, limoncello, dumbbell, Glamorgan, Saxon, harpoon, bellissimo, viandante and 8 more...
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Kalli's Words
redundant, munchkin, escapade, natch, boom, fap, geek, nocturnal, pedantic, tactile, conversant, oxymoron and 188 more...
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Twitter faves
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favourite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
niglets, aw, flakey, shiznit, thatch, sexy, bummers, hotty, eargasms, ratchetry, weird, fab and 457 more... -
the first list
an immense, grandiloquent list that loads like a thousand years sentence in stone. new words are in the other lists.
ridiculous, brummagem, predicament, sanctimonious, vapid, eschew, admonish, auspicious, capitulation, enumerate, lachrymose, tenet and 1648 more...
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ecbrenner's list
flatline, luddism, apocalipstick, muttsucker, leviathan of fore..., flint, coryphaeus, donnybrook, bandwidth, bagpipe the mizen, cheesed off, asterism and 525 more...
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Life is just a four-letter word
Everyone's got their favorites. Here are some of mine.
snit, hobo, minx, kiln, loll, pelf, yegg, ugly, bumf, brio, biro, haha and 92 more...
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Vocab
Words that I come across, and go blank, or want to clarify.
nefarious, edifice, malevolent, ostensible, folderol, bauble, livid, amnesty, calculus, saddlery, maisonette, cuisse and 423 more...
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colleen's words ii
sibilant, sundry, spindle, distaff, device, mortar, pestle, scythe, flail, thresh, frown, elementary and 495 more...
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The braggadocio recipe
A selection of English* words ending with a vowel (except "y", "ea", ie", "ee", "oo", "ea", "ou") that is REALLY pronounced.
My favorite English words, by the way.
The good twin of The ...braggadocio, recipe, encyclopedia, solo, gnu, flu, maybe, apocope, mini, arrhythmia, folio, stereo and 197 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for hobo.
oroboros See hoe boy. Dec 16, 2008
uselessness Not just in Hobotopia, I like it too. ;-) Nov 15, 2007
kalli In Hobotopia, hobocore is the most popular style of music. Nov 15, 2007