Word.ws English Dictionary

hoss

US/hɔːs/

hoss noun: a big, strong and respected or dependable person, usually a man; one who is large like a horse. Also the pronunciation spelling of horse.

Noun (1)

hoss (countable and uncountable, plural hosses)

  1. (Southern US, slang) A big, strong and respected or dependable person, usually a man; one who is large like a horse.
    • So here I was, fondling all sorts of fine mats, when a hoss of a woman screeched into her cell phone, rattling the lamps in the light fixture aisle.2004 December 8, Susan Reinhardt, “Facing my fear: Doing Disney with the crowds”, in Asbury Park Press, page 18
  2. (Southern US, capitalized, often, slang) Term of address for a man.
    • What's up, hoss?
    • It's easy as picklin' eggs, Hoss.2015 November 23, Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, “Dulcinea”, in The Expanse, season 1, episode 1, spoken by Alex Kamal (Cas Anvar)
    Synonyms:
    dude, man, brother, guy, hap, comrade, bub, bap
  3. (Northwestern, US, slang) A car.

Noun (2) capitalized: Hoss

Hoss

  1. Alternative letter-case form of hoss (Southern US term of address for a man).
    • How's it going, Hoss?

Proper noun capitalized: Hoss

Hoss

  1. A surname.

Also used as

hoss is also the pronunciation spelling of horse.

Synonyms of hoss

All synonyms of hoss

Forms of hoss

pluralhosses
alternative formhawss

Origin of hoss

A dialectal pronunciation of horse; see also 'oss in English dialects with h-dropping.

Words formed from hoss

Phrases with hoss

Words that rhyme with hoss

Questions about hoss

What does hoss mean?
Hoss means a big, strong and respected or dependable person, usually a man; one who is large like a horse.
What part of speech is hoss?
Hoss can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hoss?
Hoss is pronounced /hɔːs/ (US).
What is the plural of hoss?
The plural of hoss is hosses.

Words near hoss in the dictionary

  1. hospodariat
  2. hospodariate
  3. hospodariates
  4. hospodariats
  5. hospodars
  6. hoss
  7. hoss opera
  8. hoss operas
  9. Hossain
  10. Hossains
  11. Hossein

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hoss (page history and authors); Hoss (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: “hoss.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hoss. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.