hoon

Etymology 1

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

1. (Australia, New Zealand, slang, derogatory) A worthless person; a hooligan or lout.
   'You flash hoon,' he went on, 'Kiddin' you're white, eh?[…].' 1938, Xavier Herbert, Capricornia: A Novel, Sydney: Angus & Robertson, →OCLC
2. (Australia, slang, dated) A pimp.
   When the girls were sick, the hoons would beat the shit out of them and put them back on the street. 2009, Adam Shand, The Skull: Informers, Hit Men and Australia's Toughest Cop, Melbourne: Black Inc., ISBN 978-1-86395-438-9; republished Melbourne, Black Inc., 2010, ISBN 978-1-86395-482-2, page 85
3. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) 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 Act 1986. 30 July 2008, “Hoon Laws”, in Victoria Police, archived from the original on 2009-05-15
   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. 2009, Damien Broderick, Rory Barnes, I'm Dying Here: A Comedy of Bad Manners, New York, N.Y.: Point Blank, page 29
   [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. 2012, Sarah Baker, Andy Bennett, Patricia Wise, “Living ‘The Strip’: Negotiating Neighborhood, Community, and Identity on Australia's Gold Coast”, in Chris Richardson, Hans A[rthur] Skott-Myhre, editors, Habitus of the Hood, Bristol, Chicago, Ill.: Intellect, pages 109–110
4. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) An attempt or go at something.
   The stars of Happytime Murders give Kiwi slang a hoon 28 August 2018, “stars give kiwi slang a hoon”, in The Rock (radio station)
   Havin' a hoon on TVNZ's new OnDemand platform 13 February 2015, “TVNZ OnDemand platform”, in TVNZ Ondemand

verb

1. (Australia, New Zealand) To act loutishly; specifically, to drive excessively quickly, loudly or irresponsibly.
   […] you've hooned off – it's fair to say hooned off – at quite a high speed. 2003, Western Australian Reports: Authorized Law Reports of the Supreme Court of Western Australia, volume 28, Sydney: Published for the Council of Law Reporting of Western Australia by Butterworths, →ISSN, page 249
   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. 2012, Rob White, “The Making, Shaking and Taking of Public Spaces”, in Carol Jones, Elaine Barclay, Rob [I.] Mawby, editors, The Problem of Pleasure: Leisure, Tourism and Crime, Abingdon, Oxon, New York, N.Y.: Routledge
   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, […] 20 November 2015, Jim Ore, Crime is Everywhere (Solaris Saga; 4), Worcestershire: C. Bosley Publishing, page 244

Etymology 2

Unknown; perhaps imitative.

verb

1. 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. 1910, William Hope Hodgson, “The Whistling Room”, in The Idler: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine, London: Chatto & Windus, OCLC 34617117, page 606; republished in Carnacki the Ghost-Finder, London: Eveleigh Nash, 1913, OCLC 13117415
   Black flashing storms, the lowings and bellowings of the old sanded forest, the whistling and hooning of nameless birds, the lonesome moons, the weird fifteen-foot stone dwellers of the Old Priory, soft grassy slopes on which lovers lay, […] 1966, Christina Stead, Dark Places of the Heart, New York, N.Y.: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, →OCLC, page 278
   Zeven let loose a hooning howl of approval. 2012, Traci Harding, The Light-Field (Triad of Being; book 3), Sydney: HarperCollins

Etymology 3

Borrowed from Min Nan 分 (hun). Doublet of fen and fan.

noun

1. (historical) 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, […] 1838, N[athaniel] Wallich, “XVII.—A Few Brief Notices on the State of the Population of Prince of Wales' Island, and of the Price at which Opium is Retailed in that Colony”, in Transactions of the Agricultural and Horticultural Society of India, volume I, Calcutta: Re-printed at the Baptist Mission Press, Circular Road, →OCLC, page 57
   Visited in company with the agent of the Opium farmer 4 Opium shops, found them filled with Chinese except one which had in addition 7 Malays and natives of India. Amongst these were 3 tailors; one woman 30 years old, was there smoking her pipe,—she had been in the habit of doing so for 3 years at the rate of 3 hoons daily,—before she commenced the habit of smoking had children but none since,—thinks that it is owing to the bad habit,—would like much to give up but is frightened. 1848 January, R. Little, “On the Habitual Use of Opium in Singapore”, in J[ames] R[ichardson] Logan, editor, The Journal of the Indian Archipelago and Eastern Asia, volume II, number I, Singapore: Printed at the Mission Press, →OCLC, page 23
   Examined thirty-one men. Their average consumption was six hoons. The greatest daily consumption by one man was fifteen hoons; the smallest, two. The average number of years they had been addicted to the smoking of opium was seven years and some odd months. 1860, A chaplain in H. M. Indian Service [pseudonym; James Aberigh Mackay], “An Explanation of the Peiho Massacre”, in From London to Lucknow: With Memoranda of Mutinies, Marches, Flights, Fights, and Conversations. To which is Added, An Opium-smuggler's Explanation of the Peiho Massacre. By a Chaplain in H. M. Indian Service. In Two Volumes, volume II, London: James Nisbet & Co., 21 Berners Street, →OCLC, page 553
   Chinese Catty = 1.33 lb (605 g) / = 16 Tahil (liang or tael). / 1 Tahil = 10 Chee (chandu measures) / = 100 Hoon (fen). 1999, Carl A. Trocki, “Weights and Measures”, in Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy: A Study of the Asian Opium Trade 1750–1950, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, page x
   The average smoker used only four hoons, leaving him 36 hoons, nearly half an ounce, to sell on the black market. 2005, Derek Mackay, “Retail Monopoly”, in Eastern Customs: The Customs Service in British Malaya and the Hunt for Opium, London: The Radcliffe Press, page 141

Etymology 4

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

1. (India, historical) 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 over to him; that while they were in his possession, Soobba Shetty died, and the first and the second defendants succeeding to his (Soobba Shetty's) property, they further executed a document to him for hoons 4-8-12, on account of a balance against themselves of rice, &c., making a total mortgage on the slaves of hoons 7-3-12. 29 July 1835, “Decree Passed by the Barcoor Moonsif, in Original Cause, No. 126 of 1835, on the 29th July 1835: Hossamunay Manddawanna Shetty, residing in the Hondady Village, and Brumawhar Mogany, in the Barcoor Talook, versus Sheevy Shetty, his younger brother, Honniya, both nephews of Hossamunay Pomma Shetty, and younger brothers of Soobbiya Shetty, residing in the said Hondady Village, and Bennaycoodra Krooshna Shetty”, in Slavery (East Indies). Return to an Order of the Honourable The House of Commons Dated 22 April 1841;—for, Copy of the Despatch from the Governor-General of India in Council to the Court of Directors of the East India Company, Dated the 8th Day of February 1841 (No. 3), with the Report from the Indian Law Commissioners, dated the 15th Day of January 1841, and its Appendix Enclosed in that Despatch, on the Subject of Slavery in the East Indies, [London]: Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be printed, published 26 April 1841, →OCLC, appendix IX, page 505