Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. pertaining to Indiana, from Indiana.

1845		Northampton Mercury 1 Nov. 4/3: The ceremony of tying the nuptial knot is very much simplified in the Hoosier State.
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 12 Mar. n.p.: It occurred to me that as a representative of the Hoosier state, I should [...] try to keep you informed.
1871		E. Eggleston Hoosier School-Master (1892) 29: It has been in my mind since I was a Hoosier boy to do something toward describing life in the back-country districts of the Western States.
1880		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 4 Dec. 11/4: [headline] A Hoosier Evangeline Searching for Her Husband.
1888		Daily Alto (CA) 2 Apr. 6/1: The ‘Hoosier State’, Indiana.
1904		Ade [title] To Make a Hoosier Holiday.
1912		Godwin’s Wkly (UT) 28 Sept. n.p.: Pike, the Hoosier lawyer from Kokomo, Indiana.
1916		Aberdeen Eve. Exp. 25 July 5/3: A message from Indianapolis announces the death of James Whitcomb Riley, the ‘Hoosier Poet’.
1940		D. Maurer Big Con 175: Any Hoosier farmer would [...] ask you where the squeeze [controlling device] was on your joint.

2. peasant, rustic, simple; thus hoosiery adj.

1851		West Kent Guardian 15 Feb. 4/4: A Yankee Trick on a Hoosier Landlord. In a quiet little Ohio village [etc.].
1917		R. Lardner ‘Three Kings and a Pair’ in Gullible’s Travels 45: It’s high time she was gettin’ married, and I don’t want her marryin’ none o’ them Hoosier hicks.
1919		J.P. Dunn Indiana and Indianans II 1140: In that region it [i.e. Hoosier] always carried the idea of roughness or uncouthness, and it developed a derivative — ‘hoosiery’ — which was used as an adjective or adverb to indicate something that was rough, awkward or shiftless [DA].
1930		C. Panzram last words on the gallows in Gaddis & Long Journal of Murder (2002) 242: Hurry it up, you Hoosier bastard!
1942		C. Himes ‘Strictly Business’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 145: A hoosier cop in Terre Haute who didn’t like his looks picked him up and ran him in.
1952		W.R. Burnett Little Men, Big World 47: The awed respect of hoosier hoodlum-lovers, and café-society columnists.
1965		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 73: I have played them all, both big and small, / and I’ve struck them pretty rough, but it’s the Hoosey mob that’s on the job / that’s quick to call your bluff. [Ibid.] 74: Now the Hoosier mob got on the job / boy, I didn’t have a chance to run, / I stood on the brinks and tried to think, / but they outwitted me, son.