hound n.
1. based on the negative characteristics of the dog, synon. with dog n.2 (1)
(a) an unpleasant person.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | High Life Below Stairs I iii: Freeman is a stingy Hound [...] He dines here three Times a Week, and I never saw the Colour of his Money yet. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | London Hermit (1794) 9: You hound, I was your friend when you hadn’t another. | |
| ‘An Ode to We; A Hackney’d Critick’ Poetical Vagaries 12: Master Daw, that chubby, stupid hound. | |
| Jack Ashore II 118: A mean-looking, drunken hound, that has just married his trollop. | |
| Little Ragamuffin 206: Be off, you young hound. | |
| Dead Men’s Shoes II 284: I should be an ungrateful hound if I were to forget that for a moment. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | (con. c.1840) Huckleberry Finn 98: You’re the meanest, treacherousest hound in this country. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bushranger’s Sweetheart 9: To the devil [...] Where else can a useless hound like myself go? | |
| In London’s Heart 294: ‘If it hadn’t been for this hound I’d have stretched one of you out.’ He glanced contemptuously at the prostrate form of his accomplice. | |
| In Bad Company 17: I expect you’re loafing on your mate, who’s a decent fellow, and the sooner he parts company with a hound like you, the better. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 7 Nov. 47/2: But one day he came into the office with tears and fury in his eyes. ‘They’ve beheaded her!’ he said. ‘The blanky hounds have murdered her!’. | |
| Brooklyn Murders (1933) 61: I took a taxi to the Piccadilly Theatre, where I saw that young hound, Prinsep. | |
| Tramp-Royal on the Toby 10: You cheeky young hound! | |
| Capricornia (1939) 71: Ungrateful unsociable ill-bred ’ounds! | |
| Sudden Takes the Trail 147: If that hell-hound hadn’t showed up ... | |
| Fowlers End (2001) 273: You always were a dirty stinking hound. | |
| Thinner (1986) 242: I call you a whore [...] your father an asshole-licking toilet hound. |
(b) a gangster, a hoodlum.
| Annals of S.F. 226: These outrages, perpetuated usually at night [...] were so frequent that the ‘hounds’ became a terror to all well-disposed people of the town. They invaded the stores, taverns, and houses of the Americans themselves and demanded whatever they desired. | |
| Criminal Life (NY) 19 Dec. n.p.: The follow hounds are warned fro the corner of Jane street and 8th avenue: — Corkey Jack, Bugs, Bill the sucker, Brownhorse . | |
| (con. 1872) Barbary Coast 151: The Sacramento Weekly Union of February 24 asked editorially if the boys of the city were to be ‘trained as polite loafers, street hounds, hoodlums, or bummers?’. | |
| Fings II i: Sid reckons Collins just raided the boozer round the corner and nicked a load of the ’ounds. | |
| in Daily Mail 18 May in Norman’s London (1969) 94: The hounds confine themselves for the most part to themselves. | |
| Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 137: Not bad, was it, from a swindling little hound like him. | |
| Layer Cake 56: He’s just a fuckin hound, loads of previous for petty thievin and jumpin bail, in and out of the boob and the detox, a recidivist waster. | |
| Viva La Madness 51: They’re just a coupla hounds, nil class. |
(c) (US black) an indiscriminatingly promiscuous man.
| Negro Workaday Songs 67: Dere’s a creeper hangin’ roun’, / I’m gwiner git ’im, I be boun’. [...] An’ I be listenin’ fer dat houn’, / Dat leadin’ houn’. | |
| G.S. Schuyler Black No More (1971) 114: Well, you lucky hound! | |
| (con. 1920s–30s) Youngblood (1956) 411: Old Youngblood’s a dog [...] He’s really a hound. | |
| (con. 1930s) Lawd Today 76: Ain’t it funny about folks what’s got T.B. They a hound for women [...] He’s a hound dog from way back yonder. | |
| Campus Sl. Mar. 4: hound – a promiscuous male. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 43: Sharon had [...] launched us on the way to becoming serious hounds. | |
| (con. 1964–8) Cold Six Thousand 49: Jack [Kennedy] had hound blood. Wayne Senior said so. Martin Luther King fucked white chicks. | |
| ‘Moral Midgetry’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 8 [TV script] How did you do it? Go non-stop hound on your ex like that? | |
| Viva La Madness 43: Evey’s taken up with some hound down there. | |
| Crongton Knights 18: ‘You’d better not go on like a hound when you meet her’. |
(d) (Aus.) a lazy, good-for-nothing person.
| (con. 1920s) ‘Campbell Bunk’ in History Workshop 23: The junction of Paddington Street and Campbell Road became [...] a focus for the eveing life of the ‘hounds’, the Bunk’s street-corner men. | |
| Haxby’s Circus 33: Where’s Lil? [...] The lazy hound! She ought to give you a hand, Gina. She’s always sneaking out of things and prowling round with that damned trapezist. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Odd Spot of Bother 128: The cheeky hound put it back on the table. |
(e) (US) a coward.
| Tattoo the Wicked Cross (1981) 228: The Buzzer is a real hound when it comes to giving up some of his black booty for a bully job. |
(f) (Aus. prison) an informer.
| Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Hound. Informer. |
(g) an unattractive woman.
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 144: Other derogatory terms for women liken their unattractiveness to animals [...] Terms like dog, hound, bear, beast. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘Where the Debris Meets the Sea’ in Acid House 96: This auld hound seemed to believe that being referred to as an Abercrombie [etc.]. | |
| Grits 453: You truly ar the werst fuckin dog av ever ad the horrer of shaggin. I’ve been with some fuckin hounds like, but you wer by far the werst. | |
| PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 204: Ciara and Oisinn’s hound, this Shona one. |
2. (US) an enthusiast, a devotee [-hound sfx].
| ‘The Comeback’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 211: If he had n’t been a booze hound, he ’d have been the greatest pitcher in the world. | |
| Hand-made Fables 2: As a Host, good old Fred was a Hound. | |
| ‘Kansas City Flash’ in Ruhm Hard-Boiled Detective (1977) 72: He was an autograph hound. | |
| ‘Boogie Woogie Comes To Town’ 🎵 I’m a Boogie Woogie hound. | |
| Under A Hoodoo Moon 163: I always got a kick out of that old jive-hound’s name [...] He billed himself as ‘Prophet Greene from New Orleans’. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 91/1: hound n. 2 a watchful and over-inquisitive prison officer. | |
| (con. 1980s) Skagboys 177: Maria was keener than he thought; not just sexually, but a proper hound for the junk. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 233: Babs Payton’s riff. Shelley Mandel in all guises. Penicillin peddler/call-girl hound. |
3. (US black) a Greyhound Corporation bus.
| Swinging Syllables n.p.: Hound – Bus. | |
| ‘Promised Land’ 🎵 Straddled that Greyhound, rode him past Raleigh, / On across Caroline. [...] Half way ’cross Alabam, / And that ’hound broke down and left us all stranded. | |
| It (1987) 37: He would simply walk next door, get on a ’hound, and see how things looked down in Florida. | |
| Blossom 238: I’m going back on the ground, ride the ’Hound. | |
 | Scraping by in the Big Eighties 133: People who ride the Hound shouldn’t be allowed off. |
4. (US) ‘the daylights’, ‘the stuffing’; thus kick/knock the hound out of.
| Sometimes a Great Notion 542: I’ll...kick the hound outa him. | |
| A Night with the Hants 24: [...] well, they’d just take you out and beat the hound out of you. |
5. (Aus.) in pl., constr. with the, greyhound racing.
| Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 152: All his chinas were a jerry to his perpetual lousy luck in life generally and the punt in particular. On anything at all. The neddies, the square-gaiters, the hounds. |
In phrases
(Irish) to deceive, to trick.
| Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman [ebook] You little bastard. Don’t come the hound with m. | |
| Time Was (1981) Act II: What you told us, you weren’t coming the hound? I mean, that Arab was on a camel when he shot you? |