hobo
Americannoun
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a tramp or vagrant.
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a migratory worker.
noun
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a tramp; vagrant
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a migratory worker, esp an unskilled labourer
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of hobo
An Americanism dating back to 1885–90; origin uncertain
Explanation
Be careful when you call a vagrant or homeless person a hobo — although this is exactly what the word means, it is a somewhat offensive term. The end of the nineteenth century brought the start of the word hobo in the Western United States. No one is certain where the word came from, although there are a couple of educated guesses. One possible origin is the English word hawbuck, which means "country bumpkin," while another is the common working man's greeting or call during the building of the railroads in the West, ho, boy!
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Its crowd regarded me as if I were a hobo, a single Coke was $10 and I promptly took the next train to Ventimiglia.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 10, 2026
Yes, it wasn't a boy; it was a little girl, but I couldn't tell because she was dressed like a hobo.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2023
Over a century, L.A.’s arroyos have drawn graffitists and their chroniclers — hobo, cholo and otherwise.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2023
The trilogy includes “The Areas of My Expertise,” a book that contains, among other things, a list of 700 hobo names.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2023
We’d run, terrified, along the hobo paths, over the trestle, and through the streets.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
Starting with “Rolling Nowhere,” his 1984 account of hopping trains with hoboes, Conover has made a career of immersing himself in seemingly impenetrable subcultures, then writing with sympathy and insight about his experiences.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2022
He traveled around the world — Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan — for high-profile magazine assignments and rode the rails across the United States, chronicling some of the last of the hoboes.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 11, 2022
Or will Rory’s talk of hoboes and the inconsequence of mankind as seen from space have some effect on Pete’s work on the new alpine skiing account?
From Slate ● May 7, 2012
Dead when help came were the engineer, the fireman, the brakeman, two hoboes.
From Time Magazine Archive
He traveled for a long time with the hoboes and worked for a short time as a scarecrow.
From "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate DiCamillo
In 2014, Deadspin published the article "Candy Corn Is Garbage," which said the candy was the diet of "hobos, serial murderers and Satan."
From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2022
He lived in his own, strange world populated by hobos, French Canadians, cardsharps, trappers, a pig with a wooden leg, farmers, hooligans, and, for reasons no one will ever understand, Frank Stallone.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 14, 2022
Then, they rode the rail like a couple of hobos.
From New York Times ● May 7, 2022
The novel opens with the Dolans rousted from a baseball field where they’ve bedded down with a couple dozen other “bums, tramps, hobos, stiffs” whose seasonal work has evaporated.
From Slate ● Oct. 30, 2020
I stayed at the far end of the yard with a group of hobos waiting for a train.
From "Life Is So Good" by George Dawson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
