Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US, also hod) a gangster, a thug.

1880		R.D. Milne in Californian: a Western Monthly Mag. Jan.–June 175: The ‘hood’ who perpetrated the outrage [...] was pointed out.
1929		E. Booth Stealing Through Life 255: There’s a lot of Hods back there [...] he pronounced the name as though it were ‘Whods.’ I had heard of the Frisco Hoodlum gang.
1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 228: HOOD – Hoodlum; tough character, a criminal with or without a record, or one of criminal tendencies or associations.
1933		R. Chandler ‘Blackmailers Don’t Shoot’ in Red Wind (1946) 105: What are you back where you live, darling? One of those hoods they call private dicks?
1949		N. Algren Man with the Golden Arm 24: How come a guy like me runs all you cheap hoods around.
1959		F. Norman Fings I i: Big hoods now are little hoods, | Gamblers now do Littlewoods.
1969		M. Puzo Godfather 128: You fuckin hood, who the hell are you to tell me my business?
1975		D. Goines Inner City Hoodlum 156: Enough time to set themselves up and wait for the young hoods to show up.
1986		R.G. Barrett Real Thing 12: If I start running away from every shit-pot bloody hood that threatens me [etc.].
1989		C. Hiaasen Skin Tight 75: Hoods, dopers, scammers, bikers and stick-up artists.
1994		G. Disher Crosskill [ebook] ‘He wants to bring in some of his hood friends’.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 4: [She] chased out junior hoods trying to make a name for themselves in a soft establishment.
2000		Guardian Editor 7 Jan. 13: They model themselves on screen hoods and recycle chunks of Puzo’s dialogue.
2008		T. Dorsey Atomic Lobster 174: He’s a gangster [...] The guy’s a hood!
2009		L. McIlvanney All the Colours 304: [L]ike small-time hoods in a gangster film.
2012		A. McKinty ‘The Dutch Book’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] We’d have a window of about four hours until the hoods would come out looking for us.
2023		(con. 1962) J. Ellroy Enchanters 355: ‘He got his rocks off talking to psychos and hoods’.

2. a street ruffian.

1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 360: He was cut out for better stuff than being a hood.
1952		(con. 1948) G. Mandel Flee the Angry Strangers 28: Over the tables packed with dope fiends and philosophers [...] artists and hoods, darlings, dreamers, derelicts and every American variety of displaced person.
1965		W. Dick Bunch of Ratbags 294: I spose Mr Ridgecliff told you I used to be a hood.
1970		(con. 1950s) H. Junker ‘The Fifties’ in Eisen Age of Rock 2 (1970) 101: The J.D.’s emerged. The hood.
1989		P. Eckert Jocks and Burnouts 2: In other places and other times, the Burnouts may have been called ‘Hoods’ or ‘Greasers’.
1991		D. Gaines Teenage Wasteland 208: So-called tough kids, hoods or burnouts.
1997		C. Hiaasen Lucky You 17: He worked diligently at being a hood, taking up unfiltered cigarets, public spitting and gratuitous profanity.
2002		A. Duff Jake’s Long Shadow 237: H’s the son. Young hoods got what they deserved.
2016		Guardian G2 14 Oct. 5/1: He wins the role of a stereotypical jive-talking street hood.