bindle stiff
bindle stiff noun: a hobo, misfit, criminal, wanderer, or drifting harvest worker.
Noun
bindle stiff (plural bindle stiffs)
- A hobo, misfit, criminal, wanderer, or drifting harvest worker.
- “So maybe you better jus’ scatter along now, ’cause Curley maybe ain’t gonna like his wife out in the barn with us ‘bindle stiffs.’ ”1937, John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men, Covici Friede
- He felt like a toss-up between a bindle stiff and a skid row derelict.1983, Clive Cussler, “Pacific Vortex!”, in Dirk Pitt Series, volume 1, Random House LLC, →ISBN, page 80
- Synonyms:
- bindle punk
Synonyms of bindle stiff
Forms of bindle stiff
| plural | bindle stiffs |
|---|
Origin of bindle stiff
From bindle, a hobo’s sack.
Questions about bindle stiff
- What does bindle stiff mean?
- Bindle stiff means a hobo, misfit, criminal, wanderer, or drifting harvest worker.
- What part of speech is bindle stiff?
- Bindle stiff is a noun.
- What is the plural of bindle stiff?
- The plural of bindle stiff is bindle stiffs.
Words near bindle stiff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bindle stiff (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “bindle stiff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bindle_stiff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.