Green’s Dictionary of Slang

hound n.

1. based on the negative characteristics of the dog, synon. with dog n.2 (1)

(a) an unpleasant person.

[UK]J. Townley 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]J. O’Keeffe London Hermit (1794) 9: You hound, I was your friend when you hadn’t another.
[UK]G. Colman Yngr ‘An Ode to We; A Hackney’d Critick’ Poetical Vagaries 12: Master Daw, that chubby, stupid hound.
[UK]E. Howard Jack Ashore II 118: A mean-looking, drunken hound, that has just married his trollop.
[UK]J. Greenwood Little Ragamuffin 206: Be off, you young hound.
[UK]M.E. Braddon Dead Men’s Shoes II 284: I should be an ungrateful hound if I were to forget that for a moment.
[US](con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 98: You’re the meanest, treacherousest hound in this country.
[Aus]H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 9: To the devil [...] Where else can a useless hound like myself go?
[UK]G.R. Sims 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.
[Aus]‘Rolf Boldrewood’ 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.
[Aus]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!’.
[UK]G.D.H. & M. Cole Brooklyn Murders (1933) 61: I took a taxi to the Piccadilly Theatre, where I saw that young hound, Prinsep.
[UK]M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 10: You cheeky young hound!
[US]O. Strange Sudden Takes the Trail 147: If that hell-hound hadn’t showed up ...
[UK]G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 273: You always were a dirty stinking hound.
[US]S. King Thinner (1986) 242: I call you a whore [...] your father an asshole-licking toilet hound.

(b) a gangster, a hoodlum.

[US]Soulé, Gihon & Nisbet 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.
[US]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 .
[US](con. 1872) H. Asbury 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?’.
[UK]F. Norman Fings II i: Sid reckons Collins just raided the boozer round the corner and nicked a load of the ’ounds.
[UK]F. Norman in Daily Mail 18 May in Norman’s London (1969) 94: The hounds confine themselves for the most part to themselves.
[UK]‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 137: Not bad, was it, from a swindling little hound like him.
[UK]J.J. Connolly 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.
[UK]J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 51: They’re just a coupla hounds, nil class.

(c) (US black) an indiscriminatingly promiscuous man.

[US]Odum & Johnson 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’.
[US] G.S. Schuyler Black No More (1971) 114: Well, you lucky hound!
[US](con. 1920s–30s) J.O. Killens Youngblood (1956) 411: Old Youngblood’s a dog [...] He’s really a hound.
[US](con. 1930s) R. Wright 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.
[US]Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 4: hound – a promiscuous male.
[US]N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 43: Sharon had [...] launched us on the way to becoming serious hounds.
[US](con. 1964–8) J. Ellroy Cold Six Thousand 49: Jack [Kennedy] had hound blood. Wayne Senior said so. Martin Luther King fucked white chicks.
[US]Simon & Price ‘Moral Midgetry’ Wire ser. 3 ep. 8 [TV script] How did you do it? Go non-stop hound on your ex like that?
[UK]J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 43: Evey’s taken up with some hound down there.
[UK]A. Wheatle Crongton Knights 18: ‘You’d better not go on like a hound when you meet her’.

(d) (Aus.) a lazy, good-for-nothing person.

[UK](con. 1920s) J. White ‘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.
[Aus]K.S. Prichard 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]B. Crump Odd Spot of Bother 128: The cheeky hound put it back on the table.

(e) (US) a coward.

[US]F. Salas 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]Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Hound. Informer.

(g) an unattractive woman.

[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 144: Other derogatory terms for women liken their unattractiveness to animals [...] Terms like dog, hound, bear, beast.
[Scot]I. Welsh ‘Where the Debris Meets the Sea’ in Acid House 96: This auld hound seemed to believe that being referred to as an Abercrombie [etc.].
[UK]N. Griffiths 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.
[Ire]P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 204: Ciara and Oisinn’s hound, this Shona one.

2. (US) an enthusiast, a devotee [-hound sfx].

[US]Van Loan ‘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.
[US]Ade Hand-made Fables 2: As a Host, good old Fred was a Hound.
[US]N. Davis ‘Kansas City Flash’ in Ruhm Hard-Boiled Detective (1977) 72: He was an autograph hound.
[US]Louis Jordan ‘Boogie Woogie Comes To Town’ 🎵 I’m a Boogie Woogie hound.
[US]Rebennack & Rummel 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’.
[NZ]D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 91/1: hound n. 2 a watchful and over-inquisitive prison officer.
[Scot](con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 177: Maria was keener than he thought; not just sexually, but a proper hound for the junk.
[US](con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 233: Babs Payton’s riff. Shelley Mandel in all guises. Penicillin peddler/call-girl hound.

3. (US black) a Greyhound Corporation bus.

[US]Swinging Syllables n.p.: Hound – Bus.
[US]Chuck Berry ‘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.
[US]S. King It (1987) 37: He would simply walk next door, get on a ’hound, and see how things looked down in Florida.
[US]A. Vachss Blossom 238: I’m going back on the ground, ride the ’Hound.
N.R. Singer 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.

[US]K. Kesey Sometimes a Great Notion 542: I’ll...kick the hound outa him.
R.B. Browne 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.

[Aus]J. Byrell 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

come the hound (v.)

(Irish) to deceive, to trick.

J.P. Donleavy Destinies of Darcy Dancer, Gentleman [ebook] You little bastard. Don’t come the hound with m.
[Ire]H. Leonard 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?