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hobo

[hoh-boh] / ˈhoʊ boʊ /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Part hobo, part insult comic, part performance artist, Diogenes flaunted his disregard for convention in ways that scandalized the bourgeoisie of Athens and, later, Corinth, after his banishment from Sinope became permanent.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 17, 2025

Yes, it wasn't a boy; it was a little girl, but I couldn't tell because she was dressed like a hobo.

From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2023

Over a century, L.A.’s arroyos have drawn graffitists and their chroniclers — hobo, cholo and otherwise.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 11, 2023

The trilogy includes “The Areas of My Expertise,” a book that contains, among other things, a list of 700 hobo names.

From Washington Post ● Apr. 11, 2023

I have brief visions of the bull hook flying at my head and then even briefer visions of getting up right now, this minute, and walking back to the hobo camp.

From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen

Starting with “Rolling Nowhere,” his 1984 account of hopping trains with hoboes, Conover has made a career of immersing himself in seemingly impenetrable subcultures, then writing with sympathy and insight about his experiences.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 1, 2022

He traveled around the world — Haiti, Bosnia, Afghanistan — for high-profile magazine assignments and rode the rails across the United States, chronicling some of the last of the hoboes.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 11, 2022

Or will Rory’s talk of hoboes and the inconsequence of mankind as seen from space have some effect on Pete’s work on the new alpine skiing account?

From Slate ● May 7, 2012

They prefer to wear beards and blue jeans, avoid soap and water, live in dingy tenements or, weather permitting, take to the road as holy hoboes, pilgrims to nowhere.

From Time Magazine Archive

He traveled for a long time with the hoboes and worked for a short time as a scarecrow.

From "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" by Kate DiCamillo

A friend recently observed that many young, relatively affluent people in his New York City neighborhood—which voted heavily for Zohran Mamdani—dress like hobos and sport Carhartt workwear.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 2, 2026

When you think about the folk era, when it was really hot — burning hot — it was hobos on freighters writing songs about social injustice.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2024

In 2014, Deadspin published the article "Candy Corn Is Garbage," which said the candy was the diet of "hobos, serial murderers and Satan."

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2022

He lived in his own, strange world populated by hobos, French Canadians, cardsharps, trappers, a pig with a wooden leg, farmers, hooligans, and, for reasons no one will ever understand, Frank Stallone.

From Washington Post ● Sep. 14, 2022

We explored in the one small wooded area within walking distance, looking for the hobos rumored to have made encampments.

From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove


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