hoon
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Etymology: 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.
Inflected forms:
form: hoons
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: hoons
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: hooning
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: hooned
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: hooned
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: A worthless person; a hooligan or lout.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
New-Zealand
derogatory
slang
examples: 'You flash hoon,' he went on, 'Kiddin' you're white, eh?[…].'
gloss: A pimp.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
dated
slang
examples: When the girls were sick, the hoons would beat the shit out of them and put them back on the street.
gloss: A person who drives excessively quickly, loudly or irresponsibly; a street drag racer often driving heavily customized cars.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
New-Zealand
slang
examples: 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 Act 1986.
The hoons piled out of the wreck brimming with righteous road rage, and were settling to the task of beating the shit out of Wozza, Mutton and the hapless wheelman when they discovered the plastic bag.
[T]here is an overwhelming sense of youth as a social group with nowhere to go and nothing to do. […] Predictably, this has produced a series of strategies among young people through which to counter the boredom and frustration they often experience. One of the more spectacular – and illegal – examples of this is "hooning" (a localized term for dangerous driving) by young males. […] [H]oons transform the quiet, often sleepy streets of neighborhoods on the Gold Coast into playscapes of their own. […] Equally salient in the context of the present discussion is the random night-time appropriation by hoons of particular streets and neighborhoods on the Gold Coast in which to enact the collective rituals that give the hoon culture both internal cohesion and local notoriety.
gloss: An attempt or go at something.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
New-Zealand
slang
examples: The stars of Happytime Murders give Kiwi slang a hoon
Havin' a hoon on TVNZ's new OnDemand platform
gloss: To drive excessively quickly, loudly or irresponsibly.
pos: verb
tags: Australia
New-Zealand
especially
examples: […] you've hooned off – it's fair to say hooned off – at quite a high speed.
Cruising, hooning and street machining all involve the social use of public space where young people can exert agency by independently engaging with their surroundings. Young people use public space to meet their needs, and not always in the way a specific space was designed for. One example is that an industrial area may be used as a prime site for hooning and street racers to congregate because it is less frequently under the gaze of authorities.
Any Smokey in his Pig-pen within fifty kilometres had hooned up and down the streets towards the chase, sirens and tyres screaming, whether they could get into the actual pursuit or not, and all the criminals were glued to their TV's for the endless repeats of the demise of the gunmen in a mid-air ball of fire, […]
Derived words: hoonish
Translations: