hoon
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hoon¹
- /huːn/ UK
- /hun/ US
Rhymes with -uːn
Where it comes from
Uncertain; used initially as a general term of abuse. It first appeared in print in Capricornia (1938) by Australian writer Xavier Herbert (1901–1984); in a 1941 letter Herbert stated he had heard the term in his youth.
noun hoons
- A worthless person; a hooligan or lout. 'You flash hoon,' he went on, 'Kiddin' you're white, eh?[…].'
- A pimp. When the girls were sick, the hoons would beat the shit out of them and put them back on the street.
- A person who drives excessively quickly, loudly or irresponsibly; a street drag racer often driving heavily customized cars. Police have impounded an average of 10 cars a day since hoon laws were introduced by the State Government in June 2006. Hoon related offences include burnouts, doughnuts, drag racing, repeated driving while disqualified and high-level speeding. Offences are detailed in section 84C of the Road Safety
- An attempt or go at something. The stars of Happytime Murders give Kiwi slang a hoon
verb hoons · hooning · hooned
-
To drive excessively quickly, loudly or irresponsibly.
[…] you've hooned off – it's fair to say hooned off – at quite a high speed.
Similar: hoon it
hoon²
- /huːn/ UK
- /hun/ US
Rhymes with -uːn
Where it comes from
Unknown; perhaps imitative.
verb hoons · hooning · hooned
- To make a hooting or howling sound. All this time, every night, and sometimes most of each night, the hooning whistling of the Room was intolerable. It was as if an intelligence there knew that steps were being taken against it, and piped and hooned in a sort of mad, mocking contempt.
hoon³
- /huːn/ UK
- /hun/ US
Rhymes with -uːn
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Hokkien 分 (hun). Doublet of fen and fan.
noun hoons
- A unit of weight (about 0.378125 of a gram, or 0.0133 of an ounce) used to measure opium in British-controlled parts of Asia; a candareen. This abovementioned Chandoo or prepared opium for smoking is retailed by them [the East India Company] at 5 pice per hoon, equal to 8000 Spanish dollars per chest, and on the opposite or Queda shore the hoon is sold at 6 pice or 9,600 dollars, […]
hoon⁴
- /huːn/ UK
- /hun/ US
Rhymes with -uːn
Where it comes from
Borrowed from Hindi हून (hūn, “pagoda, a gold coin of Southern India”), from Sanskrit हून (hūna, “a kind of gold coin from a particular kingdom”).
noun hoons · hon · hun
- A pagoda, a type of gold coin. The plaintiff in his plaint states, that the first and second defendants' elder brother, Soobbiya Shetty, on the 8th Ashweeja Bahoola of the year Veya, mortgaged to him, for 2½ hoons, his two slaves, viz. a female Dher, named Honnoo, and a male Pardeshey, together with their offspring, and made them
Hoon⁵
Rhymes with -uːn
Where it comes from
From the Dutch surname de Hoon, from Middle Dutch hoon (“dangerous”), from Old Dutch *honi (“despicable”).
proper noun Hoons
- A surname from Dutch.
- A civil parish (without a council) in South Derbyshire district, Derbyshire, England (OS grid ref SK2231).
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: hun, lord, hon, hoop, xun, chung, isao, hooer, hool, hoolie, honyock, hooter, hoser, honyocker, nong, hoofer
Talk about this word "hoon." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/hoon. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. hoon. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/hoon "hoon." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/hoon.Cite this
@misc{hoon_2026,
title = {hoon},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/hoon},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
