What's the origin of the word "hobo"?

Answer 1

Several theories: farmhand " Ho boy!";
"Ho, beau!" - railroad greeting;
shorter form of a place HOuston and BOwery, a meeting place for itinerants;
HOmeward BOund;
ho-bo - Japanese word meaning in all directions;
HOBOken, New Jersey - the endpoint of many railtracks;
HOpping BOxcars - their mode of transportation.

Another source mentioned that it came from the Spanish word jobo/ hobo to give the travelling workers more panache than the vagrants.

Answer 2

The origin of the term is not confirmed, though there are popular theories.

Author Todd DePastino has suggested that it may come from the term ho-boy meaning "farm hand", or a greeting such as Ho, boy! [1]. Bill Bryson suggests that it could either come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a contraction 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; or from the Japanese word hōbō meaning "in all directions." (It's worth noting that "hobo," a similar-sounding Japanese word, means "nursery school teacher.")

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 3

Hobo Definition

Answer 4

The word in its modern form was first recorded in the north-western US. Here’s the first example I know about, which comes from the Ellensburgh Capital in Washington State, in November 1889: “The tramp has changed his name, or rather had it changed for him, and now he is a ‘Hobo’ ”. Note the initial capital letter, which also turns up in other early examples, and which has led many writers to conclude that it was a proper name, or at least the hoboes own name for themselves.

Incidentally, though many writers equate hobo and tramp, they themselves made a careful distinction, in that a hobo travelled to find work while a tramp travelled to avoid it. (A bum was worse than either.)

As to where it came from, there are several theories. One writer has pointed out possible parallels with English dialect words hawbuck and hawbaw for a coarse or clumsy fellow, but there seems to be no clear evidence for its movement from Britain to the north-west of the USA. A more common explanation is that it derives either from a greeting “Ho, Bo!” (or “Ho, Beau!”) of one migrant to another, or a challenge or greeting used by railway workers: “Ho boy!”.

This origin may be supported by a sentence that Barry Popik of the American Dialect Society found in the New Orleans Picayune of 19 August 1848: “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”. But the Random House Dictionary of American Historical Slang carefully notes that the big gap between this and the next appearance of the word leaves a lot of questions unanswered, as is so often the case.

Answer 5

Hobo Etymology

Answer 6

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
What's the origin of the word "hobo"?

Answer 7

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate dictionary says "etymology 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.

Answer 8

I always heard that it came from the depression era when so many men were looking for work as farmhands and carried the one most important tool of the trade, a hoe.

Answer 9

homeless body