What was the word hobo derived from?

Answer 1

Etymology is the study of where words came from - for hobo most sources say "unknown" or "uncertain"

Some research indicates:

• it is an American English word introduced around 1890.
• it may come from the term hoe-boy meaning "farmhand" as this is the type of work hobos did
• it may be a greeting "Ho, boy!"

Answer 2

For two centuries, in both England and America, homeless wanderers from place to place had been known as tramps. Then an unknown American came up with a new word for them: hobo. Researcher Barry Popik has found it used in a http://www.answers.com/topic/breezy letter from New York City in the New Orleans Picayune of August 19, 1848: "Well, here I am once more in Gotham, after three years' absence--three years which have passed as http://www.answers.com/topic/agreeably-2 as time usually passes with people in this digging world. During that period I have floated about and circulated round to some considerable extent.... a year's bronzing and 'ho-boying' about among the mountains of that charming country called Mexico, has given me a slight dash of the Spanish." Where this odd word came from nobody knows for sure, but the "slight dash of the Spanish" gives a hint. It could be borrowed from the Spanish hobo, or jobo, a word which appeared in print as far back as 1516. This word, in turn, comes from the Taino Indian language spoken in the West Indies and refers to a tree that grows there. How could a tree become a http://www.answers.com/topic/tramp? Well, over the centuries Spanish jobo acquired other more relevant meanings. In Mexico jobo can refer to a Guatemalan; in Cuba, correr jobos means "to play http://www.answers.com/topic/truant." So to avoid the http://www.answers.com/topic/taint of the term tramp, an American wanderer might be happy to adopt the exotic hobo. In American English, it has continued to imply relatively higher status than vagrant or tramp. The exact definition has depended on who was using the word, but hobo has generally meant "a wanderer who is willing to work." Here's a probable origin, according to Click and Clack of the NPR radio show Car Talk. This is taken from their puzzler page. Their account also may explain the 1848 origin of "ho-boying."

Week of 08-11

PREVIOUS PUZZLER: The Confederate Soldiers Who Left Home

When the Civil War ended, soldiers returned home to find the lives they knew were gone. Many left again in the hopes of rebuilding their lives, and they were carrying something. What was the name for these men?

RAY: Here's the answer. The Confederate soldiers returning home were called a name that arose out of a tool they were carrying. A hoe.

TOM: Farm hoes!

RAY: Exactly. The soldiers were walking the back roads, riding and jumping on trains, and sleeping out in the countryside hoping to find some kind of work.

They were called hoe boys, which came to be called hobos.

http://www.cartalk.com/content/puzzler/transcripts/200832/answer.html

Answer 3

Bill Bryson suggests in Made In America that it could either come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of "homeward bound".

Others have said that the term comes from the Manhattan intersection of Houston and Bowery, where itinerant people once used to congregate.

Still another theory of the term's origins is that it derives from the city of Hoboken, New Jersey, which was a terminus for many railroad lines in the 19th Century. The word "hobo" may also be a shortening of the phrase which best describes the early hobo's method of transportation, which was "hopping boxcars"

Answer 4

Short for homeward bound. =]

Answer 5

Nowadays it is known as a homeless-body, but it origionally came from the phrase "hoe-boy," meaning farmhelper.