hood n.3
1. (US black) the area in which one lives, one’s home ground.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | in Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dict. (1998). | |
| (ref. to 1950s) in Vice Lords 4: What are we going to do, we going to get together and look out for our hoods (neighborhoods). | |
| Carlito’s Way 3: So let’s hear it for all the hoods. The Jews out of Brownsville. The Blacks on Lenox Avenue. The Italians from Mulberry Street. | |
| Central Sl. 28: hood, the [...] ‘Lately there been too much bullshit in the hood.’. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Curvy Lovebox 84: Lissen to the word in the muthafuckin’ hood. | |
| ‘In da Club’ 🎵 In the hood, in L.A. they saying ‘50 you hot’. | |
| Keisha the Sket (2021) 59: ‘He woz a drug king pin in da “hood”’. | |
| Hood Rat 106: They are running Hackney now. They have the hood on lock. | |
| Sellout (2016) 233: Before the word ‘hood’ had been approriated to mean any location from the upscale enclaves of the Calabasas Hills [...] to the student zoo at your state university. |
2. attrib. use of sense 1.
| Rakim Told Me 156: ‘Chuck was a Nationalist position [...] I was a ’hood politician. I wanted people to understand what was going on in the city’. | |
| Running the Books 284: This old hood shit, it don’t go away. | |
| This Is How You Lose Her 101: Unlike your average hood hottie Pura seemed not to know what to do with her fineness. | |
| ‘Bring Me Down (Intro)’ 🎵 You ain't hood you only freeze when you see skengz. | |
 | ‘Kennington Where It Started’ 🎵 So you know who's hood, who's good. | |
| The Force [ebook] ‘Dumb good,’ Monty says. ‘Are you trying to sound hood, Levin?’. |
3. (US gang) the area a gang frequents and controls.
| Vice Lords 25: ‘[N]o other groups can come down in our hood and start nothing’. | |
| (con. 1990s) in One of the Guys 113: ‘I wake up...get dressed, hit the hood, see what they got on the weed [...] go to one of the homies house and just chill’. |
4. (US prison) a friend who has come from one’s own neighbourhood.
| Maledicta V:1+2 (Summer + Winter) 265: He’s at ease with a hood or a homey, a friend from the same home town and neighborhood. |
5. (N.Z. prison) a wing of the prison.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 90/1: hood, the n. the cell block, the wing,the prison compound. |
In compounds
(US black) an impoverished single mother willing to indulge in casual prostitution.
| Corruption Officer [ebook] Ch. 23: Hood booga - any low self-esteem female in any hood that is on welfare with a bunch of kids [...] that will give up the cookie to any City employee due to the fact that he has benefits. |
1. an unattractive and/or promiscuous woman; also attrib.
| ‘Hoodrat’ 🎵 Drama, nigga, you can toss her, cause she’s a hoodrat. | |
| et al. A2Z 50/1: hood rat – n. anyone from the hood; a promiscuous girl from the hood. | |
| 8 Ball Chicks (1998) 84: She and Q-Mac sized up the other women in the restaurant — ‘ho,’ ‘bitch,’ ‘hoochie,’ ‘hood rat’ — they had as many derogatory names for bad women as Eskimos do for snow. | |
| Westsiders 272: Rebecca is going to fuck. She’s a hoodrat. She’s just a ho. | |
| Teen Lingo: The Source for Youth Ministry 🌐 hoodrat see ‘hoochie mama.’. | |
| ‘1 Train’ 🎵 Weed a different color, like a hoodrat bra and panties. | |
| ‘Having Chiqui’ in ThugLit July-Aug. [ebook] Pat was [...] not that crazy—not over some hoodrat skank like Chiqui. | |
| Crongton Knights 27: The feds were para about anyone looking like a hood-rat. | |
| What They Was 169: Davina is a good ting. She ain’t one of them dutty hood rats [...] who’ll link a man one day and then let his bredrin smash the next. |
2. a young person living in the (black) neighbourhood or part of a gang, usu. female; also attrib.
| see sense 1. | |
| Source Oct. 96: I want to make some shit that the little ’hood-rat bitches know. | |
| Guardian Rev. 10 Mar. 27: The young black hero steps out of prison straight into a stolen car driven by one of his feckless hood-rat homeboys. | |
| Lush Life 67: We’re definitely talking local hood rats, probably holed up somewhere in the projects . | |
| ? (Pronounced Que) [ebook] I’m a lawyer, not some gossipy little hoodrat. |
3. (US campus) a gangster, a thug.
| Da Bomb 🌐 15: Hoodrat: Hoodlum; gangster; mobster. | |
| Portable Promised Land (ms.) 151: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] House negro. Field nigga. Hood rat. Rude bwoy. Ghetto Celeb. Big Willie. | |
| Way Home (2009) 295: If she saw him she’d see a hood rat from the side of town she never drove through. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | [bk title] Hood Rat. | |
| theculturetrip.com ‘Guide to London Slang 10 Jan. 🌐 Hoodies/hood rats – guys/gals on the street who will rob you (probably). |
In phrases
(US black gang) being a member of a neighbourhood gang.
| Do or Die (1992) 20: ‘How long you been from your ’hood?’ He is asking G-Roc how many years he has been active in his gang. |
(US black gang) to enrol in a gang.
| Do or Die (1992) 62: One day I went to take out the trash, and they put me on the ’hood. Three guys jumped me in. |