What does "hood" mean?
A covering for the head, usually attached to a larger garment such as a jacket or cloak.; A head covering placed on falcons to inhibit their vision.
Hood
/hʊd/ adj, name, noun, verb, slang
adj, name, noun, verb, slang ·Very common ·Middle school level
Meaning at a glance
- Primary sense: A covering for the head, usually attached to a larger garment such as a jacket or cloak.; A head covering placed on falcons to inhibit their vision.
- Grammar: hood is listed as adj, name, noun, verb, slang.
- Nearest alternatives: bonnet, cowl, 'hood, -osity.
- Useful contrasts: bare head, boot, hat.
- Usage evidence: It's so hot that you could cook an egg on the hood of a car.
How to use "hood"
- Start with the primary definition, then check the part of speech before placing the word in a sentence.
- Compare nearby synonyms to make sure "hood" carries the exact meaning, tone, and strength you need.
- Use the example sentence as a context check. If your sentence uses the word differently, confirm that the grammar still fits.
Meaning check
- Does the word fit the sentence's grammar?
- Does it match the intended tone rather than only the dictionary definition?
- Would a simpler synonym be clearer for the reader?
- Is there enough surrounding context to prevent ambiguity?
Source and review context
This entry combines structured lexical data with WordToolSet review checks. Definitions, examples, synonyms, and usage notes may come from different source tables, so the page is designed to show evidence from more than one angle before you rely on "hood" in a final draft.
If a word has several senses, prefer the sense that matches your sentence's grammar and surrounding context. A correct definition can still be the wrong choice when the sentence needs a different register, emphasis, or level of specificity.
Before you rely on this definition
Read the first definition as a starting point, then check the example, synonyms, and part of speech before treating "hood" as the right word for your sentence.
If your draft is formal, technical, persuasive, or sensitive, compare "hood" with a nearby alternative so the final choice matches both meaning and reader expectation.
Compare nearby meanings
- Use synonyms when you need a softer, stronger, simpler, or more specific word.
- Use antonyms to check the boundary of the meaning and avoid accidental contrast.
- Use the example sentence to confirm the word behaves naturally in context.
- Keep the original wording when a replacement adds complexity without improving precision.
Definition decision workflow
1. Identify the role
Check whether "hood" is acting as adj, name, noun, verb, slang in your sentence. A definition is only useful when the grammar matches the way the word is being used.
2. Test the nearest option
Compare it with "bonnet" and other nearby choices to see whether the sentence needs a softer, stronger, or more familiar word.
3. Confirm with context
Use the example sentence below as an evidence check, then read your own sentence out loud to catch tone or rhythm problems.
Review note: Definition pages are checked for source coverage, sentence evidence, synonym support, and editorial insight before they are treated as approval-ready pages. If the evidence is too thin, the page remains available to users but is kept out of the approval-facing indexed inventory.
Final meaning check
Before publishing a sentence with "hood", ask whether the word helps the reader understand the idea faster. A precise word should reduce confusion, not simply make the sentence look more polished.
When the definition, synonym evidence, and example context point in the same direction, the word is usually a safer choice. When they conflict, revise the sentence or choose a clearer alternative.
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A covering for the head, usually attached to a larger garment such as a jacket or cloak.; A head covering placed on falcons to inhibit their vision.
- 2 Gangster, thug. slang
"Teen-age hoods steal cars in cities, take them into the pines, strip them, ignite them, and leave the scene."
- 3 A neighborhood. slang
"What’s goin’ down in the hood?"
- 4 Person wearing a hoodie. UK
- 5 (zoology) an expandable part or marking that resembles a hood on the head or neck of an animal wordnet
Show 22 more definitions
- 6 A covering for the head, usually attached to a larger garment such as a jacket or cloak.; A head and neck covering placed on horses to protect against insects and sunlight, to slow coat growth and for warmth.
- 7 Any poor suburb or neighbourhood. slang
- 8 protective covering consisting of a metal part that covers the engine wordnet
- 9 A distinctively colored fold of material, representing a university degree.
- 10 a headdress that protects the head and face wordnet
- 11 An enclosure that protects something, especially from above.
- 12 the folding roof of a carriage wordnet
- 13 Particular parts of conveyances; A soft top of a convertible car or carriage. UK
- 14 metal covering leading to a vent that exhausts smoke or fumes wordnet
- 15 Particular parts of conveyances; The hinged cover over the engine of a motor vehicle, known as a bonnet in other countries. Canada, US
- 16 (falconry) a leather covering for a hawk's head wordnet
- 17 Particular parts of conveyances; A cover over the engine, driving machinery or inner workings of something. broadly, especially
"Like many captains, I was just as glad to leave engineering to the engineers. Looking under the ship's hood wasn't what interested me."
- 18 a tubular attachment used to keep stray light out of the lens of a camera wordnet
- 19 Particular parts of conveyances; A metal covering that leads to a vent to suck away smoke or fumes.
- 20 an urban, often lower-income inner-city area wordnet
- 21 Particular parts of conveyances; One of the endmost planks (or, one of the ends of the planks) in a ship’s bottom at bow or stern, that fits into the rabbet. (These, when fit into the rabbet, resemble a hood (covering).)
"Care must also be taken to place the tenons on the main post so that a stop-water can be driven between it and the fore tenon and the rabbet of the hoods at the keel. The post being dressed to its proper dimensions, the tenons cut, and their ..."
- 22 a protective covering that is part of a plant wordnet
- 23 Various body parts; An expansion on the sides of the neck typical for many elapids e.g. the Egyptian cobra (Naja haje) and Indian cobra (Naja naja).
- 24 an aggressive and violent young criminal wordnet
- 25 Various body parts; The osseous or cartilaginous marginal extension behind the back of many a dinosaur such as a ceratopsid and reptiles such as Chlamydosaurus kingii. colloquial
"Platysma myoides […] which sends attenuated fibres and slips to the gular region of the hood and is lost dorsad in the fascia covering the trapezius but acquires thickness over the sternum and cervix. Thyromandibularis […] Two distinct muscles may bear this name, an externus and an internus. The latter rises by two slips from about the middle of the inner surface of the mandible and is inserted into the middle of the inner side of the thyrohyal. The greatly elongated thyrobyal passes between the two layers of integument constituting the hood, at its middle fold, and so forms a “yard” to which the lower half of the hood is bent. This inner division of the Thyromandibularis being an adductor of the bone, is the chief agent in lowering the hood and bracing its lower moiety to the side of the neck—it is antagonised by the greater part of the outer division which rises fleshy immediately behind the inner one, but nearly on the lower edge of the jaw, the origin of the mylohyoideus being between them. It immediately divides into two superposed fascicles, the deeper one being inserted into the lower surface of the thyrohyal, a little behind the insertion of the inner division—the other sub division is inserted posteriorly to the former one into the outer side of the bone for the rest of its length and acting thus advantageously is an efficient erector of the lower part of the hood."
- 26 Various body parts; In the human hand, over the extensor digitorum, an expansion of the extensor tendon over the metacarpophalangeal joint (the extensor hood syn. dorsal hood syn. lateral hood)
- 27 Various body parts; The prepuce; the foreskin or clitoral hood. colloquial
Verb
- 1 To cover (something) with a hood. transitive
- 2 cover with a hood wordnet
- 3 To extend out from (something), in the manner of a hood. transitive
- 4 To grow over the eyelid but not the eye itself. intransitive
Adjective
- 1 Relating to inner-city everyday life, both positive and negative aspects; especially people’s attachment to and love for their neighborhoods. not-comparable
Proper Noun
- 1 A surname. countable, uncountable
"Last month, Fort Hood in Texas, another major military installation, was redesignated Fort Cavazos, in honor of Gen. Richard Edward Cavazos, a veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars who became the first Hispanic person to wear four stars on his uniform."
- 2 A placename:; A census-designated place in Sacramento County, California, United States. countable, uncountable
- 3 A placename:; An unincorporated community in Madison County, Virginia, United States. countable, uncountable
- 4 A placename:; Ellipsis of Hood County. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountable
- 5 A placename:; Ellipsis of Hood River. abbreviation, alt-of, countable, ellipsis, uncountable
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
"It's so hot that you could cook an egg on the hood of a car."
Common questions
What is a synonym for "hood"?
Common synonyms include: bonnet, cowl, 'hood, -osity, accelerator, aeroplane.
How do you use "hood" in a sentence?
It's so hot that you could cook an egg on the hood of a car.
How do you pronounce "hood"?
Pronounced /hʊd/.
Etymology
Etymology 1
From Middle English hood, hod, from Old English hōd, from Proto-West Germanic *hōd, from Old English hōd, from Proto-Germanic *hōdaz, from Proto-Indo-European *kadʰ- (“to cover”). See also Saterland Frisian Houd (“hat; hood”), West Frisian/Dutch hoed (“hat”), Cimbrian huat, huut (“hat”), German Hut (“hat”), German Low German Hood (“hat; hood”), Luxembourgish Hutt (“hat”); also Proto-Iranian *xawdaH (“hat”) (Avestan 𐬑𐬂𐬛𐬀 (xåda), Old Persian 𐎧𐎢𐎭 (x-u-d /xaudā/)). More at hat.
Etymology 2
Clipping of hoodlum.
Etymology 3
Clipping of neighborhood; compare nabe.
Etymology 4
Clipping of hoodie, influenced by existing sense “hoodlum”.
Etymology 5
* As an English and Scottish surname, from the noun hood. * Also as an English surname, from the Middle English name Hode, a variant of Ode or Odd with prosthetic H-, see Ott, Oates, and also compare Hodson. * Also as an English and Scottish surname, variant of Hudd. * As an Irish surname, Anglicized from Ó hUid (“descendant of Ud”). Compare Mahood. * As a French surname, Americanized from Houde.