hoon, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

hoon n.

[ety. unknown. Baker suggests, esp. for sense 2, a contraction of Jonathan Swift’s houyhnhnm (the anthropomorphic horses of Gulliver’s Travels, 1726), but they are seen as intelligent beings. It is their human slaves, the yahoos, who are the fools – and noted as such in dictionaries; note also N.Z. WWII use by religiously motivated conscientious objectors to describe those with political or humanitarian (rather than religious) agendas]

1. (Aus./N.Z.) a pimp, a procurer of prostitutes.

1915		Truth (Perth) 23 Jan. 3/7: In his defence, Leahy said he was a cab-driver, and he did not live with Rosa. He just called in that evening to see her as he was going to get his cab. Mrs. Potter saw him and called him a bludger and a ‘hoon.’ Leahy confessed he had no idea what a `hoon' might he. When she abused him he told her he would pull her nose, and went into her yard. She PICKED UP THE AXE, and hit him twice with it.
1949		in Simes DAUS.
1953		Baker Aus. Speaks v. 124: Women whose activities are not organised by hoons [...] are called battlers.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxv 6/2: hoon: A male living partly or fully on the earnings of prostitution. A taker of the red bob.
1975		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Apr. 44: Among them were gamblers, thieves (tea leaves), hoons or red penny men (pimps) [...].
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 31: Hoon Prostitute’s bludger.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 176: And with a blade, he was very handy, / Just ask a Melbourne hoon named Sandy.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 2: That June of ’63 King’s Cross was [...] brothels, hookers, pimps, hoons, charity molls, spruikers, toffs, chats, mooks, lairs, mugs, phizgigs, drag queens, straights, shines, bent cops, [...] tea leaves, neon, glitz.
2006		P. Shannon Davey Darling 36: I [...] spied some of the hoons from around the corner riding past the shops, casing who was about.

2. (Aus./N.Z., also bloodhoon) a show-off with limited intelligence; a flashy lout or hooligan.

1932		Sun. Mail (Brisbane) 13 Nov. 20/8: ‘Hoons’ is the technical term for hoodlums; a ‘pitch’ is what the ‘whizz-men’ call a trick .
1938		Smith’s Wkly 21 May 6/4: I remember meeting [...] ‘Tibby,’ greatest of all Australian ‘whizzmen’ (pickpockets). [...] ‘Blime,’ he roared, ‘I been working with a gay (mug), and taking risks in the ‘rort’ (crowd) for a ‘bloodhoon’ who never lifted a ‘leather’ (wallet) in his life’.
1938		X. Herbert Capricornia (1939) 309: You flash hoon [...] kiddin’ you’re white.
1945		Baker Aus. Lang. 130: Fools of one kind and another have carved a considerable niche for themselves in Australian speech and little explanation is needed for any of the following: lardhead, loop, nit, plat (a clipping from platypus), quoit, hoon, tonk, twit [etc.] .
1969		Woroni (Canberra, ACT) 1 Oct. 12/4: Some of Queensland’s laws need changing. [...] Whether the long-haired hoons want to believe it or not— we do have some thinking men in our society who realise this.
1978		Canberra Times (ACT) 16 July 24/1: The ‘hoon’ element, as Mr Hurford put it recently, is turned off the activity by strictly enforced no-smoking and no-alcohol drink ing rule.
1982		G. Newbold Big Huey 249: hoon (n) Uncultured, boorish person.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 191: hoon: a general term of insult.
1988		McGill Dict. of Kiwi Sl. 57/2: hoon hooligan.
1990		T. Winton Human Torpedo 108: If you want a hoon or a head-banger, stick with the Chevy boys.
1993		K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 57: They were not so much lager-louts as Bollinger bovver boys, Heidsieck hoons.
1993		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read How to Shoot Friends 42: Mack Icky and me [...] nearly got into a gun battle with a group of would-be Mafia hoons.
2000		S. Maloney Big Ask 13: Farrell and his hoons realised we were prepared to stick up for ourselves.
2000		Penguin Book of All-New Aus. Jokes 39: A bloke sat in a pub, just drinking a beer and minding his own business, when all of a sudden, a big hoon came in, knocked him off his stool.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. [as cit. 1988].
2012		G. Disher ‘Wyatt’s Art’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] One of Milne’s hoons answered his ring [...] Hempel: young, designer stubble, earring, shaved bullet head, dressed for clubbing.
2016		au.news.yahoo.com/vic/ 22 June 🌐 Residents of a neighbourhood tormented by violent hoons are banding together to protect their streets. A father of four who was bashed by a hoon fears his attacker could return.
2023		D. Whish-Wilson I Am Already Dead 8: If word got around that the door of Club Summertime could be rushed [...] then every hoon with a reputation would be lining up for a crack.

3. (Aus./N.Z.) one who drives in a dangerous, showing-off manner; also attrib.

1969		Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 8 Jan. 2/4: Advertising these locations, also advertises the locations where they are not being used, thus giving the hot-rod hoons an open go.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 157: That bastard run ya down, the bloody hoon!
1985		B. Robinson Aussie Bull 32: I detest the ‘hoons’ (the tyre screechers and show-offs).
1996		Penguin Bk of More Aus. Jokes 328: A drunken hoon in a four-wheel drive, doing a good 100km/h in the 60 zone, skittled them.
2006		ABC News (Aus.) 20 Dec. 🌐 Harder to be a Hoon in Australia These Days.
2011		ABC News (Aus.) 14 Apr. 🌐 Hoon driving poses a serious risk to road users and pedestrians.

4. (Aus./N.Z.) a drive taken at high speed.

1986		Metro (Auckland) Mar. 27: [He] ‘borrowed’ Aunty Astle’s Roller for a bit of a hoon.
1996		J. Lambert Macquarie Book of Slang 119/2: hoon [...] 4. a fast reckless driver of a car, boat, etc. 5. a speedy drive: going out for a hoon tonight.

In derivatives

hoondom (n.)

(N.Z.) the world of loutish exhibitionists.

1983		Dominion (Wellington) 24 Mar. I: On display was a wide range of these Wellingtonians – louts, larrikins, lunks, lummoxes, yahoos – the creme de la creme of hoondom [DNZE].
2004		Age (Melbourne) 18 Apr. 🌐 Did he deliberately choose the colour of anger and aggression – and the riotous look-at-me carry-on of hoondom – because he had difficulty articulating his deeper issues?

hoonery (n.)

(N.Z.) loutish behaviour.

1987		Dominion (Wellington) 21 Sept. 3: The chief executive of the Hotel Association, Tom Sheehy, said last night that students contained elements of ‘hoonery’, just as did other groups of society [DNZE].
2004		Brisbane Instit. 18 Nov. 🌐 A weekend of ear-shattering, publicly-funded hoonery.

hoonish (adj.)

(N.Z.) of a person or their behaviour, exhibitionist, loutish.

1983		Listener (NZ) 5 Nov. 70: A lot of hoonish summer behaviour may be the very result of biorhythmical and biochemical imbalances [DNZE].
1997		S. Miller et al. Police Ethics 96: The hoonish, coke-snorting, not-very-bright Dowd and company were criminally and blatantly running out of control.
2004		D. Menadue Positive: Living with HIV/AIDS 42: He and a couple of hoonish friends [etc.].

hoonmobile (n.)

any type of car that appeals to hoon taste.

1993		Dominion (Wellington) 16 Jan. 10: I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or outraged by the stares from the rear windows of the hoonmobiles [DNZE].
1994		Business Rev. Weekly (Melbourne) VII 97/4: But then, the Vitara Wagon is not intended to be a hardcore hoonmobile. It is, rather, obligatory 2.3 children in the back.

In compounds

hoon bin (n.) [sin bin under sin n.]

(N.Z.) an enclosure where drunken sports supporters are detained during a match.

1998

DNZE 358/2: hoon bin [formed on rugby league, etc. sin bin] a place where (drunken) louts misbehaving at sporting fixtures can be confined to ‘cool off.’.

hoonchaser (n.)

(N.Z.) a police officer.

1986

Metro (Auckland) Sept. 70: [headline] Cops Three nights on the road with the hoonchasers [DNZE].