hoodlum
/ˈhuːdləm/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.29 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
7
Letters
2
Syllables
6
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "When the hoodlums reach their headquarters..."
- "There is no question the MS-13 gang must be stopped. It is a vile organization of hoodlums with no regard for life."
- "In Sam Mendes's excellent gangster movie Road to Perdition (2002), he tested the boundaries further playing a hitman – but while we know he's a killer, we never really see him go full-pelt hoodlum."
- "Caesar Enrico “Rico” Bandello is a hoodlum who rises swiftly in Chicago’s mob world, in the 1931 film “Little Caesar.” Played by Edward G. Robinson, Rico is tracked down by police and shot."
- "The state’s police spokesman Wasiu Abiodun told CNN in a statement that operatives arrested 11 armed “hoodlums” who set fire to a government building after looting it."
Etymology
First attested in a December 1866 Daily Alta California article, which mentions "the 'Hoodlum Gang' of juvenile thieves". Several possible origins have been proposed. It may derive from a Germanic word like Swabian hudelum (“disorderly”) or Bavarian Haderlump (“ragamuffin”). Herbert Asbury's book The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld (1933, A. A. Knopf, New York) says the word originated in San Francisco from a particular street gang's call to unemployed Irishmen to "huddle 'em" (to beat up Chinese migrants), after which San Francisco newspapers took to calling street gangs "hoodlums".
Word Breakdown
- Root: hudelum, Haderlump