Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US Und.) one of a pickpocket gang.

1970

R. Fabian Anatomy of Crime 193: Hustler: A pickpocket’s jostler.

2. (US) a racetrack tout.

1892		in Outing (N.Y.) July 263: From the many times millionaire in the members’ stand to the coatless, penniless ‘hustler’ in the infield [etc.] [HDAS].
1917		Van Loan ‘Levelling with Elisha’ in Old Man Curry 13: The bald-faced Kid was a hustler, a free lance of the turf, playing a lone hand against owner and bookmaker [...] operating upon the wheedled capital of the credulous. He was sometimes called a tout.
1931		D. Runyon ‘The Lily of St. Pierre’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 140: Bob the Bookie, who is a hustler around the race-tracks, gets to talking to me.

3. (US) a hard-working, ambitious person, also an energizer, one who exhorts his fellows to harder work, greater commitment.

1886		Publishers’ Weekly 18 Dec. 965/1: Young man, a ‘hustler’ in every respect, wants a strictly first-class position with a ‘live’ book house [DA].
1896		Courier (Lincoln NE) 21 Sept. 10/1: The hustler [...] has a proclivity for concocting schemes whereby he will make millions.
1902		Ade Forty Modern Fables 250: ‘Gee, but this is Tame!’ said the Retired Hustler.
1904		Derby Dly Teleg. 31 Aug. 4/5: The hustler is an American creation [...] a person totally incapable of leisure [...] the incarnation of haste and hurry [...] proud of the fact that he is overdriven, and overdrives himself.
1910		H. Hapgood Types from City Streets 281: As city editor he tried the difficult task of being a ‘hustler’ and at the same time an expresser of what is, from a newspaper point of view, inexpressible.
1929		T. Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel (1930) 125: ‘That boy’s a hustler. He’ll make his mark,’ said all the men in town.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.
1959		E. De Roo Young Wolves 5: Roy watched her thin fingers fly back and forth. Some hustler, he thought. Got to hand it to Ma.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 804: hustler – A grafter.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 46: He was [...] one hell of a broken-field runner. The best hustler in the league.
1978		Maclean’s (Toronto) 9 Jan. 62: Of all the clichés about west coast living [...] the most offensive is that life out here is ‘laid-back’, as if even the most aspiring members of the artistic community are sitting around waiting for someone to peel them a grape while the real hustlers are back east getting things done.
1988		(con. c.1919) D.D. Harrison Black Pearls 45: Bradford was a hustler. His persistence may have been considered a nuisance by some but that did not deter him.
1997		D.H. Edwards The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing 188: Sunnyland, he been a hustler ever since I known him [...] he was the hardest working man.
2007		A.C. Shepard Woodward and Bernstein 27: ‘He was ambitious. He was smart. He was a hustler, but he wasn't always totally responsible’.

4. anyone who makes a living through their wits and ingenuity, rather than accepting the restraints of a conventional job; their occupations are often, but not invariably, criminal or virtually so.

1886		Lantern (N.O.) 6 Oct. 3: Mike was a hustler from the start, and where a dollar was to be earned he made it.
1894		Mirror of Life 14 Apr. 2/2: Mr. Brady is a clever manager and a ‘hustler’ from way back.
1899		Ade Doc’ Horne 238: In the United States of America a hustler is one who is busy, persistent, resourceful and combative, usually that he may accumulate money .
1907		J. London Road 183: In any camp of men there will always be found a certain percentage of shirks, of helpless, of just ordinary, and of hustlers.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 27 Jan. 4/7: He’s a soprano-voiced little hustler with about as much sentiment in him as is contained in the vitals of a steam roller.
1919		Marvel 1 Mar. 6: He’s business all through, and a red-hot hustler.
1929		V.W. Saul ‘Vocab. of Bums’ in AS IV:5 341: Hustler—One who lives by his wits and illegitimately.
1938		R. Chandler ‘The King in Yellow’ in Spanish Blood (1946) 48: One of those hustlers Quillan registered in Eight-eleven is out there truckin’ for them.
1944		C. Himes ‘Let Me at the Enemy’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 36: Every cat looks to get hooked some time or other, even a hustler as slick as me.
1959		C. Himes Crazy Kill 55: It was strictly a hangout for the upper-class Harlem hustlers, those in the gambling and prostitution professions.
1961		T. Taylor Baron’s Court All Change (2011) 101: [Y]ou have to be a real hustler to earn loot like this.
1960		L. Block ‘Badger Game’ in One Night Stands (2008) 22: Somebody with a little more on the ball might have made him for a hustler in the Organization — not a muscle boy, but somebody with an angle.
1975		D. Goines Inner City Hoodlum 67: The hustlers, pimps and whores had all started to congregate.
1983		N. Heard House of Slammers 90: All the hustlers sneered as they heard his name smeared / And trampled and dragged through the mud.
1992		V. Headley Yardie 27: The [...] newly arrived Jamaican youths in the area had adversely affected the local hustlers.
2000		G. Pelecanos Shame the Devil 199: Wilson looked at the skinny, greasy-lookin’ hustler with the yellow eyes.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 226: Pimps and hustlers were a natural [...] group from which to draw [for a creative writing class].
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] [H]ot, smelly, noisy, dangerous, fun, interesting, stimulating, infuriating Harlem with the real people and [...] the hustlers, the slingers, the whores.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 18: These lusty hustlers weren’t faking the flattery [...] at this point they’d fuck a mop.
2023		A. Nette Orphan Road 13: Tremont came across as a middle-aged hustler, heavily tanned skin [...] his white shirt unbuttoned to reveal a chunky Buddha amulet on a gold chain around his neck.

5. (W.I.) a confidence man, a well-dressed beggar.

2001

Source Aug. 94: Real hustlers don’t talk about shit they did. Game is to be sold, not told.

6. (US Und.) a pimp.

1914		Jackson & Hellyer Vocab. Criminal Sl. 47: Hustler, [...] a grafter; a pimp who steals betimes. The genteel thief is designated a ‘hustler’.
1936		‘Hectic Harlem’ in N.Y. Amsterdam News 8 Feb, sect. 2: HUSTLER. – A pimp, procurer and person who generally lives without working.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 93: Hustlers, gambling house steerers and junk pushers find prospects in them.
1959		C. MacInnes Absolute Beginners 77: You’re not that kind of hustler.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 79: If Fay hadn’t disrespected him so in front of all the other pimps and hustlers.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 hustler Definition: 1. a pimp [...] Example: The king of all hustlers is Youngblood Priest.

7. (US) a prostitute of either sex.

1924		G. Henderson Keys to Crookdom 408: Hustler. Prostitute.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 159: I hear the hustlers are yum-yum in France, too.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 150: All you can knock around is that beat-out hustler John brushed off.
1951		Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 113: Allen was queer in those days [...] and Neal saw that, and a former boyhood hustler himself in the Denver night. [Ibid.] 231: It is also the hustler’s bar, the boys who make a living among the sad old homos of the Eighth Avenue night.
1953		T. Runyon In For Life 86: The son of a nameless father, his mother a hustler in a whorehouse.
1964		Homosexuality & Citizenship in Florida 14: Such young people as this, known as hustlers, will frequently become ‘fairies,’ intersted only in sex with any man, or ‘dirt,’ willing to be passive in a homosexual act but given to robbing the homosexual of all money and clothing at its conclusion.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 165: What she appears to be, a hustler makin’ a pipeline.
1967		J. Rechy Numbers (1968) 27: Johnny spots a male hustler here, an interested man there, a potential queen.
1973		D. Goines Street Players 33: How can you tell a real good hustler from one that’s just fair?
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 46: The ass handkerchiefs and keys [...] green for hustler.
1981		H. Gould Fort Apache, The Bronx 101: That dumb bitch used to be the best hustler in New York City.
1988		(con. 1940s) C. Bram Hold Tight (1990) 92: Sash was a ridiculously proper hustler – despite the heat, he wore a necktie tonight.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 433: Well, your sweetie pie here was a known associate of a known fruit hustler named Bobby Inge.
1991		D. Simon Homicide (1993) 260: The Meat rack [...] where hustlers sold themselves outside the gay pickup bars.
2005		E. White My Lives 119: I liked the notion behind the English term rent boy rather then our hustler, since the American word suggested something dishonest and on the make.
2010		W. Ings ‘Trolling the Beat to Working the Soob’ in Int’l Jrnl Lexicog. 23:1 58: [T]he paper is concerned not with language about male prostitution but with language used by male prostitutes. In this regard there is an absence of terms like he-whore, callboy and hustler.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 27: He played the bongos for a clique of fruit hustlers.

8. a gambler or player of pool, bowling etc, who uses skill and poss. cheating to make a living against lesser opponents.

1930		W.R. Burnett Iron Man 257: One of the town bullies was playing pool with a hustler and losing.
1938		H. Asbury Sucker’s Progress 17: Stool-pigeon [...] came into general use among American gamblers to designate a capper or a hustler for a Faro bank.
1949		W.R. Burnett Asphalt Jungle in Four Novels (1984) 156: A couple of hustlers from the poolroom [...] were eating at the counter.
1951		M. Spillane Long Wait (1954) 150: He had been there for about ten minutes, talked to a couple of hustlers, made a phone call, had a few more drinks and left.
1961		C. Cooper Jr Weed (1998) 133: That was the way most pool hustlers got cut down.
1974		(con. 1960s) R. Price Wanderers 173: Every Friday night the Wanderers bowled as house hustlers at Galasso’s Paradise Lanes.
a.1985		‘The Open Book’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 112: A tinhorn card hustler and discard cunt rustler, / a throw back to some ancient age.
2011		G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebk] cap. 1: I love taking a 9 to 5 nigga’s money, but taking a hustler’s money is like winning $10,000 dollars on one of those scratch tickets!

9. (US campus) a man who succeeds in seducing women, a womanizer.

1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS.
1975		G. Underwood ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 61: hustler n Playboy, someone who has great success with females.
2000		Ebonics Primer at www.dolemite.com 🌐 hustler Definition: [...] 3. a sexually successful male. One who can score easily.

10. a tout.

1966		T. Keyes All Night Stand 69: At that moment [...] the poncy Greek-looking doorman hustler stepped out.
1967		R. Conot Rivers of Blood 226: [A] hustler for a building contractor convinced them that the land was too valuable to have just a house on it.