Hood (pronounced hood)
(1) A
soft or flexible covering for the head and neck, either separate or attached to
a cloak, coat and similar garments.
(2) Something
resembling or suggestive of such a covering (especially in shape) and used in
botany to describe certain petals or sepals.
(3) In
North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence, the
(usually) hinged, movable part of an automobile body covering the engine (the
bonnet in the UK and most of the old British Empire). Despite geographical spread, the phrase
“under the hood” is now close to universal, referring to (1) the engine of an
automobile & (2) by extension, the inner workings or technical aspects of
anything (a computer’s specifications etc).
(4) In
the UK and most of the old British Empire, the roof of a carriage or
automobile, able to be lowered or removed (ie on a convertible, cabriolet,
roadster, drophead coupé (DHC) et al).
In North America and other places subject to that linguistic influence
such things tend variously to be called soft-tops or convertible tops.
(5) A
metal cover or canopy for a stove, fitted usually with a ventilation system (a
flue or extractor fan).
(6) In
falconry, a cover for the entire head of a hawk or other bird, used when not in
pursuit of game.
(7) On
academic gowns, judicial robes etc, an ornamental ruffle or fold on the back of
the shoulders (in ecclesiastical garments, and in cults such as the Freemasons,
also used as a mark of one’s place in the hierarchy).
(8) In
nautical use, as hooding ends, one of the endmost planks (or, one of the ends
of the planks) in a ship’s bottom at bow or stern which fits into the stem and
sternpost rabbets. When fitted into a rabbet,
these resemble a hood (covering).
(9) In
zoology, a crest or band of color on the head of certain birds and other animals
(such as the fold of skin on the head of a cobra, that covers or appears to
cover the head or some similar part).
(10) In
anatomy (the human hand), over the extensor digitorum, an expansion of the
extensor tendon over the metacarpophalangeal joint (the extensor hood (dorsal
hood or lateral hood).
(11) In
colloquial use in palaeontology, the osseous or cartilaginous marginal extension
behind the back of many dinosaurs (also known as the “frill”).
(12) As
the suffix –hood, a native English suffix denoting state, condition, character,
nature, etc, or a body of persons of a particular character or class, formerly
used in the formation of nouns: childhood; likelihood; knighthood; priesthood
and of lad appended as required (Twitterhood, Instahood etc, subsets of
Twitterverse & Instaverse respectively).
(13) In
slang, a clipping of hoodlum.
(14) In
slang, a clipping of neighborhood, especially an urban neighborhood inhabited
predominantly by African Americans of low socioeconomic status (a part of
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and adopted also by LatinX) although
use in these communities does now transcend economic status.
(15) To
furnish with or fit a hood; to cover with or as if with a hood.
(16) In
medieval armor, a range of protective cloakings or coverings
Pre 900:
From the Middle English hode, hod, hude, hudde
& hoode (hoodes apparently the most common plural), from the Old English hōd, from the Proto-Germanic hōdaz, (related to the Old High German huot (hat), the Middle Dutch hoet and the Latin cassis helmet) and
cognate with the Saterland Frisian Houd,
the Old Frisian hōde, the West
Frisian & Dutch hoed, the Proto-Iranian
xawdaH (hat), the German Low German Hood and the German Hut (hat). The Old English hād was cognate with German –heit and was a special use used to
convey qualities such as order, quality, rank (the sense surviving academic, judicial
& ecclesiastical garments). The
ultimate source is uncertain but most etymologists seem to support the
primitive Indo-European kad & kadh (to cover). Hood is modified as required (chemical hood, clitoral
hood, un-hood, de-hood, fume hood, hood-shy, hood unit, hoodwink, range hood, riding
hood etc) and something thought hood-shaped is sometimes described as cuculliform. Hood is a noun & verb, hooded &
hooding are verbs, hoodless hoodesque & hoodlike are adjectives; the noun
plural is hoods.
Hood as clipping of hoodlum (gangster, thug, criminal etc) dates from
the late 1920s and would influence the later use of “hoodie” as a slur to refer
to those wearing the garment of the same name, the inference being it was worn
with nefarious intent (concealing identity, hiding from CCTV etc. Hood as a clipping of neighborhood (originally
especially an urban (inner-city) neighborhood inhabited predominantly by
African Americans of low socio-economic status) dates from circa 1965 and became
part of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and was adopted also by
LatinX) although use in all communities does now transcend economic status. It was an alternative to ghetto (a word with
a very different tradition) and encapsulated both the negative (crime,
violence, poverty) & positive (group identity, sense of community) aspects
of the low-income inner city experience.
Although a part of AAVE, it never formed part of Ebonics because its
meaning was obvious and, to an extent, integrated into general US vernacular
English. The phrase “all good in the
hood” is an example of the use of the clipping.
Blu-Ray & DVD package art for Red Riding Hood (2006). In US use, "alternate" seems to have been accepted as a synonym for "alternative". Few seem to mind.
The
verb hood in the sense of “to put a hood” & “to furnish with a hood” on
dates from circa 1400 while although hooded & hooding aren’t attested until
decades later, it’s possible the use emerged at much the same time. The Old English hod was typically "a soft covering for the head" which
extended usually over the back of the neck but only in some cases did it
(permanently or ad-hoc) attach to some other garment. The modern spelling emerged early in the
fifteenth century and indicated a “long vowel” although that pronunciation is
long extinct. The word was picked up in
medicine, botany & zoology in the seventeenth century while the use to
describe the “foldable or removable covers on a carriage which protects the
occupants from the elements” was documented since 1826 and that was used in a
similar context by the manufacturers of prams and baby-carriages by at least
1866. The meaning “hinged cover for an
automobile engine” was in use in the US by 1905 while across the Atlantic, the
British stuck to “bonnet”. The fairy
tale (some read it as a cautionary tale) Little
Red Riding Hood (1729) was a translation of Charles Perrault's (1628-1703) Petit Chaperon Rouge which appeared in
his book Contes du Temps Passé (Stories
or Tales from Past Times (1697)).
The suffix -hood (a word-forming element meaning “state or condition of being”) was an evolution of the Old English -had (condition, quality, position) which was used to construct forms such as cildhad (childhood), preosthad (priesthood) & werhad (manhood); it was cognate with German –heit & -keit, the Dutch -heid, the Old Frisian & Old Saxon -hed, all from the Proto-Germanic haidus (manner, quality (literally “bright appearance”, from the primitive Indo-European skai & kai- (bright, shining) which was cognate with the Sanskrit ketu (brightness, appearance). It was originally a free-standing word but in Modern English survives only in this suffix.
HMS Hood in March 1924. The last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy, it was 860 feet (262 metres) in length, displaced 47,000 tons and had a main armament of eight 15 inch (380 mm) guns.
Naval
architecture, fire control ballistics and aviation had however moved on in
those years and although the biggest warship afloat (the “Mighty Hood” in the
public imagination), Hood was outmoded but as late as the early 1930s this
mattered little because the prospect of war between the big powers seemed not
only remote but absurd. Hood is still
thought one of the most elegant warships ever and it spent those years touring
the empire and other foreign ports, her fine lines and apparent might
impressing many although the Admiralty was well aware the days of Pax Britannica
were over. Much comment has been made
about the design flaw which resulted in the Hood sinking in minutes after a
shell from the German battleship Bismarck, fired from a range of some ten miles
(16,000 m), penetrated the deck (some modern analysts contest this because of
technical details relating to the angle of fire available to the German
gunners), causing the magazine to explode, essentially splitting the hull in
two. In fairness to the Kriegsmarine (the German navy), it was a
good shot but at that range, it was also lucky, that essential element in many
a battle.
In
structural linguistics, the term “Americanisms” is used to describe several
sub-sets of innovations in English attributed to those (and their descendents)
who settled in North America. They include
(1) spellings (color vs colour), most of which make more sense than the
originals, (2) simplification of use (check used for cheque as well as its
other meanings), (3) coinings (sockdolager (decisive blow or remark), a
nineteenth century American original of contested origin) and (4) alternatives
(suspenders vs braces). Hood was one
word where used differed in the US. In
the UK, the hood was the (traditionally leather but latterly a variety of
fabrics) folding top which began life on horse-drawn carriages and later
migrated to cars which eventually were, inter alia, called cabriolets, drophead
coupés or roadsters. In the US the same
coachwork was used but there the folding tops came to be called “soft tops”,
one reason being the hood was the (usually) hinged panel which covered the
engine. In the UK, that was called a
bonnet (from the Middle English bonet,
from the Middle French bonet (which
endures as the Modern French bonnet), from the Old French bonet (material from which hats are made), from the Frankish bunni (that which is bound), from the
Proto-Germanic bundiją (bundle), from
the primitive Indo-European bend- (to tie).
The origins of the use of bonnet and hood as engine coverings were
essentially the same: the words were in the nineteenth century both used on
both sides of the Atlantic to describe cowls or coverings which protected
machinery from the elements, impacts etc (the idea based on the familiar
garments) and it was only chance that one use prevailed in one place and one in
the other. There were other differences
too: what the British called the boot the Americans said was the trunk which on
the early automobiles, like many of the stage coaches they replaced, indeed it
was.
Unhinged: Not all hoods were hinged. In 1969, some Plymouth Road Runners (left) and Dodge Super Bees (right) could be ordered with a lightweight, fibreglass hood held in place by four locking pins. Known as the "lift-off hood", it need two conveniently to remove the thing so it wasn't the most practical option Detroit ever offered but to the target market, it was very cool.
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