Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to act as a decoy, esp. for a card-sharper or a cheapjack.

1900

Bulletin (Sydney) 24 Feb. 15/3: Hawking, to evade unpleasant police scrutiny, is a favorite trick of the bookie-spieler now-a-days.

2. to pounce upon, to capture, esp. of a criminal seizing upon a victim.

1909

J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.

3. (US black) to keep a suspicious and close watch on.

1886		Lantern (New Orleans, LA) 6 Oct. 2: And to keep solid home he hawks the baby.
1960		C. Cooper Jr Scene (1996) 68: All I have to do is pull around the corner where nobody can hawk the license plate.
1971		H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: hawk v. […] 2. to watch closely (often pronounced ‘hack’).
1979		E. Torres After Hours 16: I’m hawkin’ the three guys at the pool table.
1988		Ice-T ‘Personal’ 🎵 I live in privacy, don’t like suckers hawking me.
1995		(con. 1985–90) P. Bourjois In Search of Respect 149: My supervisor was just a bitch who liked to make sure I’m doing my job all the time [...] and she didn’t need to be hawking me that way.
2000		P. Beatty Tuff 180: Tuffy, the collective eyes of the Bloods hawking him, approached a stocky Latin King.

4. (US) to pilfer, to steal.

1869		‘Six Years in the Prisons of England’ in Temple Bar Mag. Jan. 217: A very considerable number of convicts left the prison with the intention of ‘hawking’ from place to place, and doing a little bit on the ‘cross’.
1899		J. Flynt Tramping with Tramps 232: They ain’t worth hawkin’.
1986		S. King It (1987) 42: Maybe somebody hawked it out of my pocket.

5. to stare at, to stare down .

1965		‘SWAP Dict. Teen-age Sl’ in Ebony Mar. 98/2: Hawk: to watch — as in ‘Man, that skank steady hawks me in school’.
1994		P. Baker Blood Posse 68: The heat see us hawking them, then they know we got something to hide.
1995		L. Stavsky et al. A2Z 46/2: Don’t you be hawkin’ my chains.

6. (US campus) to work hard.

1966

Current Sl. I:3 4/2: Hawk, v. To study dilgently.

7. to walk quickly.

1971

H.E. Roberts Third Ear n.p.: hawk v. 1. to walk rapidly; to pursue closely.

8. (orig. US black) to participate in an athletic activity for fun.

1988		Eble Campus Sl. Mar.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 56: Those who could hawk ball [i.e. basket ball] were respected almost as much as those who could dress well, rap, and fight.

9. (UK black) to greet, to speak to.

1999

(con. 1979–80) A. Wheatle Brixton Rock (2004) 182: Floyd hawked the trio. ‘All right?’.

10. to beg a favour.

1995

L. Stavsky et al. A2Z 46/2: He always be hawkin’ my friends for funds.