Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) pertaining to tramps or their culture; used lit. and fig. of somebody who is poor or tramp-like.

1889		Pasco Headlight 6 Sept. 3/1: The hobo crop is more plentiful than ever before [DA].
1892		Morn. Call (San Francisco) 10 Aug. 16/5: In another can was a stew of meat and potatoes which did not look vey appetizing [...] known as a Ho-bo stew.
1898		Boston Journal 22 Aug. 6/2: Mrs. S. J. Atwood calls herself the ‘Hobo Hustler of the West’ [...]. Her business is to gather up all the idle laborers she can find and put them to work on the Union Pacific Railroad [DA].
1900		A.H. Lewis ‘Hamilton Finnerty’s Heart’ in Sandburrs 66: A friend put me onto your skip from Liverpool. It was a hobo trick.
1901		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 30 Jan. 2/6: ‘Say,’ said the man with the hobo appearance, ‘could you put something in the paper for me’.
1916		H.L. Wilson Somewhere in Red Gap 6: What did Wilfred Lennox, the hobo poet, have to do with Mr. Ben Sutton?
1928		M.C. Sharpe Chicago May (1929) 262: Jungle buzzard—hobo sneak-thief, preys on his own kind.
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 147: This is Clark Street poker — hobo gamblers, hobo steerer, hobo dealer.
1972		Hall & Adelman Gentleman of Leisure 184: You haven’t made any money in months. You’re just a ho-bo bitch.
1985		(con. 1969–70) D. Bodey F.N.G. (1988) 44: His tape player is beat to pieces [...] The setup looks like a kind of hobo kit.
1996		H. Roth From Bondage 342: And where was that bum going, that hobo-panhandler?
2020		T. Pluck ‘Hula Hula Boys’ in What Pluckery Is This? (28 Jan 2024) 🌐 They’d gladly embrace the hobo life if it meant they wouldn’t get thrown alive into a junkyard car crusher.