hod

verb

1. (Scotland, intransitive, obsolete)To bob up and down on horseback, as an inexperienced rider may do; to jog.

   “To have caught young wild ducks—a dozen— / So we "hodded" them in a hat to town, / To get them "pot-luck"—at least a "shake down," / With some tame, domestic cousin.”

   “They hodded off the furniture, moth-eaten, cracked, and old, / For iron old the swords and helms and dish-covers they sold; […]”

   “Hoddin gray, a coarse grey woollen cloth, called "hoddin" from country people wearing it, who "hodded," that is, jogged along on carthorses.”

   “It was decided we should travel on all night; […] The bright lamps, shining forth into the mist and on the smoking horses and the hodding post-boy, gave me perhaps an outlook intrinsically more cheerful than what day had shown; or perhaps my mind had become wearied of its melancholy.”

noun

1. A three-sided box mounted on a pole for carrying bricks, mortar, or other construction materials over the shoulder.

   “Oiſeau: […] a Hodd; the Tray vvherein Maſons, &c, carrie their Mortar.”

   “And then Arthur and I, we soon drew our hods / And we scarce gave them time for to draw their own blades / When a trusty shillelagh came over their heads / And bade them take that as fair warning.”

   “Alas, so it is everywhere, so it will ever be; till the Hod[-]man is discharged, or reduced to hodbearing; and an Architect is hired, and on all hands fitly encouraged:[…]”

   “Independent candidate, who wants the Irish vote and Dutch suffrages, entered, borne in a mortar hod, bare-footed, with a shillelagh in one hand, a whiskey bottle in the other, a Dutch pipe in his mouth, and a small barrel of beer strapped to his back.”

   “Make your son a shoemaker,—a bricklayer,—or give him no more education than shall fit him to carry a hod,—and with patience and industry he may make a fortune, and he may do it with uninjured feelings; […]”

2. The amount of material held by a hod (sense 1); a hodful.

   “[T]he women do the hardest work—carry hods of mortar, unload vessels, drive oxen, &c. …”

3. A blowpipe used by a pewterer.

   “The pewterers employ a very peculiar modification of the blowpipe, which may be called the hot-air blast, and the names for which apparatus are no less peculiar; a fig. 313, being called the hod, and b, the gentleman. The first is a common cast-iron pot with a close cover, containing ignited charcoal; two nozzles lead into and from it, to allow the passage of a stream of air, through the pipe c, from bellows worked by the foot.”

4. A bookmaker's bag.

   “'Clerking' is perhaps the most difficult and most admired job on a racecourse. The next time you see a bookmaker at his hod, waving his ticket-filled hands, shouting the odds, look to his left, just back a bit—out of the limelight. The bloke sitting there with his head buried deep in a ledger is the clerk.”

5. (US, dialectal)A receptacle for carrying coal, particularly one shaped like a bucket which is designed for loading coal or coke through the door of a firebox.

   “[…] Fanny, forgetful of her young-ladyism and her sixteen years, had boxed Tom's ears, and Tom, resenting the insult, had forcibly seated her in the coal-hod, where he held her with one hand while he returned the compliment with the other.”

   “My friend comes home and finds his dressing-gown and slippers in front of the fire. He is tired and cross, and doesn't want to sling ashes nor bang a coal-hod. But the sight of the fire makes him feel better at once, and if there be no fire, there are no ashes.”

   “The household uses of copper are principally for cooking utensils and a variety of miscellaneous items, such as urns, bowls, hods, lamps, candlesticks, vases, book ends, and ash trays.”

6. (abbreviation, alt-of)Abbreviation of head of department.

name

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of Höðr.