home guard n.
1. (US) a regular worker, one who stays on one job in one locality rather than a transient.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | in Cincinnati Enquirer 9 May 13: Homeguard – A fellow who has never left his native city . | |
| ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 651: Home guards — town workers who do not migrate. | |
| ‘Down in the Mohawk Valley’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 49: She could have married a fortune and been free from every harm / If she’d wanted to marry a ‘homeguard’ and live on a Valley farm. | |
| Railroad Avenue 193: A sizeable number of boomers married Harvey girls or other waitresses [...] and ‘homesteaded,’ that is, settled down as home guards. |
2. (US) a beggar or tramp who stays in one place; also attrib.
| Camp Worker (Vancouver) 19 Sept. 8/3: Camp poorly organized; too many home guards [OED]. | |
| Journal of Murder in Gaddis & Long (2002) 116: I have met every kind of a crook there is. [...] home guards and boomers. | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Living Rough 257: I’m heading back to B.C. [...] The god-damn East ain’t no good – it’s all hoosiers and homeguard stiffs that’s there. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | (con. 1920s) Legs 84: These facilities [...] made Chicago a haven for hobos, tramps, oddballs, mission stiffs, home guards and cripples. |
3. (US Und.) a con-man’s victim who lives in the same city/town as that in which he is fleeced.
| Big Con 139: He avoids the ‘home guards’ and ‘short riders’ who might be able to cause trouble. |
4. (US Und.) a local, as opposed to an itinerant, confidence man.
| ‘Pitchman’s Cant’ in AS XVII:1 Pt 2 Apr. 91/2: home guard. A resident of a town, usually a permanent resident. ‘I am a home guard now; not even a forty-miler’ (i.e. one who resides permanently in a community and does not travel, even on business, outside a forty mile radius). |