hobo, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

hobo n.

[ety. unknown; claims have been made for hoe-boy, a migrant farm-worker and the cry Ho, boy! used regularly by northwestern railway mail handlers c.1880–90; ‘Willie the Rat’, in a hobo dictionary (in Morn. Tulsa Dly World, 13 June 1915) claims ‘the word “hobo” is derived from the Latin homo (man) and bonus (good)’; note Mencken, The American Language (3rd edn, 1936): ‘Tramps and hoboes are commonly lumped together, but in their own sight they are sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migratory laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but soon or late he returns to work. A tramp never works if it can be avoided; he simply travels. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police’; note WWI milit. hobo, a cadger, a useless person]

(US)

1. the penis [fig. use of sense 2, i.e. it ‘wanders around’].

a.1900		‘Red Light Saloon’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 76: I pulled out my hobo, and I gave her a shove, / Such glorious feelings from the Power above.
a.1969		‘The Mormon Cowboy’ in G. Logsdon Whorehouse Bells Were Ringing (1995) 40: He married a farmer’s daughter, most beautiful, they said, / Who expected female sporting that night when she went to bed / When she found he had no hobo, she wrang her hands and cried.

2. a tramp, a vagrant, an itinerant worker, often using the US rail system as a means of free transport.

1888		Morning Oregonian 14 Sept. 8/2: I see by your puzzled look you do not understand what a hobo is. I will tell you what we mean by the term. It is a word used to classify all tramps and vags. The word first originated with the Independent Order of tramps, and was used by them as a sort of password. One tramp walking along the street seeing another whom by his general appearance he thinks belongs to the order says ‘hobo.’ If the party thus addressed recognizes the word, he stops and an acquaintance is struck up. Again, this tramp walking alongside a lot of freight cars tops at one in which he thinks there is a brother and repeats the magic word. It is a sesame and if this surmise is correct, the car door is drawn back and the man outside is received within.
1896		F. Hutcheson Barkeep Stories 10: ‘De next hobo dat maces me [...] is liable to have t’ duck away from a cannon’.
1898		Binstead & Wells Pink ’Un and Pelican 99: I mentioned the black and his adventure with the hobo’s to Johnnie Fleming.
1902		O. Wister Virginian 160: I could take yu’ out ten yards in the brush and lose yu’ in ten seconds, you spangle-roofed hobo!
1916		J. Lait ‘Omaha Slim’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 105: The other ’bos knew it, too. [Ibid.] ‘One Touch of Art’ 206: She said to tell you this ain’t no hobos’ flop, neither.
1925		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 19 Dec. 3/1: A bloke named Peter was appointed doorkeeper, with strict orders to bar all tramps and hobos wot looked as if they needed a spiritual bath.
1929		D. Hammett ‘Fly Paper’ Story Omnibus (1966) 49: We picked up a few hoboes that Pebble and his men had missed earlier.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 768: He passed the public library, seeing hoboes cluttered around the entrance way.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 256: I don’t know nothin’ ’bout no hoboes, any more’n this song-writer did.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 116: There is a huge population of transients—railroad workers, migratory farm hands and roughneck woodsmen from the Northwest and Canada, as well as drifting hoboes.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 59: Hoods, hobos, hustlers, homosexuals.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 90: He always referred to himself as a professional hobo.
1986		S. King It (1987) 311: There were tramps and hobos sometimes, though [...] men with unshaven cheeks and cracked skin and blisters on their hands and coldsores on their lips.
1999		Guardian Editor 9 July 19: An entire world of adventuresome ramblers, the tramps and hobos.
2000		Sun. Times Mag. 6 Feb. 22: In the 1860s, many hobos died of exposure after hopping on steam trains.
2001		C. Lee Eight bells & Top Masts 1: This is the story of an old tramp, a hobo, but not a bum.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] Sitting like a hobo in the dim alley.
2011		H. Ellison Introduction in Pulling a Train’ [ebook] Sharing gypsy coffee with [...] hobos, and we called each other brother—or just ’bo.

3. the vagrant cell.

1903		J. London People of the Abyss 205: As a vagrant in the ‘Hobo’ of a California jail, I have been served better food and drink than the London workman receives in his coffee-houses.
1907		J. London Road 77: The ‘Hobo’ is that part of a prison where the minor offenders are confined together in a large iron cage. Since hoboes constitute the principal division of the minor offenders, the aforesaid iron cage is called the Hobo.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 450: Hobo cage, The large cage in a jail where general prisoners are herded together. It receives it’s name from the fact that such prisoners are usually hoboes. Also the hobo.

4. (N.Z.) a rough, lowly person, not necessarily a tramp .

2003

McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 102: hobo Rough person ANZ post-WWI, not necessarily the tramp it means elsewhere.

5. someone whose poverty renders them effectively a tramp.

1980		E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 41: One particular girl [...] she was just a little hobo.
1992		D. Pinckney High Cotton (1993) 129: I didn’t know whether to think of congenial, self-abnegating Trots as the hobos or the church group that ran the relief house.
2000		Guardian Guide 8–14 Jan. 54: She ensnares hobo John Garfield.

In compounds

hobo cage (n.)

(US) the iron cage in a prison for locking up minor offenders.

1927

‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 450: Hobo cage, The large cage in a jail where general prisoners are herded together. It receives it’s name from the fact that such prisoners are usually hoboes.

hobo cocktail (n.)

(US) a glass of water, esp. when requested (rather than alcohol) in a restaurant.

1947		M.H. Boulware Jive and Sl.
2006		D. DeSalvo Lang. of the Blues 83: When you walk into a cafe or restaurant and ask for a glass of tap water, you’re requesting a hobo cocktail.

hobo coffee (n.)

coffee made without the use of a filter, which one has to allow to settle before drinking; thus any very strong coffee.

1945		I.S. Tucker Out of the Hell-box 103: [He] sat down beside the rickety stove [...] and ate wienerwursts and drank strong hobo coffee.
1950		Illinois Eng. Bulletin 38 17: My stomach was well pleased, having dined on an evening's ration of Mulligan stew and hobo coffee.
1963		R.H. Andrews Corner of Chicago 266: Hungry troupers had rigged Rube Goldberg contraptions on which they boiled eggs and made hobo coffee, cooking coffee grounds over and over again.
1978		P.D. Wellstone How the Rural Poor Got Power 62: A wonderful friend who made the best hobo coffee in the country.
1987		(con. 1967) E. Spencer Welcome to Vietnam (1989) 71: Hobo coffee is coffee grounds boiled in water without filters – you have to let it settle before you drink it.
2000		H.D. Wong Love Medicine 200: Hobo coffee, just boil the water and run it over the coffee in a strainer.
2011		D. Martin River Ice 88: He poured some coffee grounds into a pot to sit and brew overnight. Hobo coffee, they call it.

hobo soup (n.)

(US) ketchup mixed with hot water.

1999		J. Stahl Perv (2001) 235: You know you can live off ketchup and water [...] They call that hobo soup.
2006		D.E. Steward Christ, for a Day 165: I stirred in ketchup, a little Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper, and crushed the soda crackers into the cup of hot water; and enjoyed my, ‘Hobo soup’.

hobo tango (n.)

(US tramp) lockstep, as forced on prisoners as a regimented way of walking in certain 19C US prisons; abolished by 1910.

1915

Morn. Tulsa Dly World (OK) 13 June 19/2: Hobo tango — Lockstep; learned in penal institutions.

In phrases

hobo’s delight (n.)

1. (US) a cigarette end.

1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl.
1966		Jrnl Amer. Folklore 79 597: What you flip away you then call a [...] ‘dincher,’ ‘dobe,’ ‘duck,’ ‘dummy,’ ‘hobo’s delight’.
1986		R.A. Spears Sl. & Jargon of Drink & Drugs.

2. (US tramp) a form of stew made from alfalfa and and bacon rinds.

1972

R. Chaplin Wobbly 87: There was no mystery about buttermilk or ‘hobo’s delight’—young alfalfa cooked with bacon rinds.

hobo’s delight (on a rainy night) (n.)

(US) a throw of twelve in craps dice.

2001		Word for the Wise 31 Aug. [US radio script] The slang boxcars comes from the resemblance of a pair of sixes to roofed freight cars. It’s easy to see how that roll then picked up the nickname hobo’s delight on a rainy night.
2012		P. Nehrt Winning Gambling Strategies 80: Verbiage of the Stickman [...] 12 [...] a hobo’s delight on a rainy night.