Hoodlum

//ˈhuːdləm// noun

noun ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A gangster; a hired thug.

    "There is no question the MS-13 gang must be stopped. It is a vile organization of hoodlums with no regard for life."

  2. 2
    an aggressive and violent young criminal wordnet
  3. 3
    A rough or violent youth.

Synonyms

All synonyms
hoodhoodthugtoughundesirableagitator

Example

More examples

"I didn't want to add this hoodlum as a friend on Twitter."

Etymology

First attested in a December 1866 Daily Alta California article, which mentions "the 'Hoodlum Gang' of juvenile thieves". Several possible origins have been proposed. It may derive from a Germanic word like Swabian hudelum (“disorderly”) or Bavarian Haderlump (“ragamuffin”). Herbert Asbury's book The Barbary Coast: An Informal History of the San Francisco Underworld (1933, A. A. Knopf, New York) says the word originated in San Francisco from a particular street gang's call to unemployed Irishmen to "huddle 'em" (to beat up Chinese migrants), after which San Francisco newspapers took to calling street gangs "hoodlums".

More for "hoodlum"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.