hideout

Etymology

It is formed from English hide + out,^[2] as a noun use of the verb phrase hide out, to go into hiding.^[3][4][5][6] The phrase is American: Etymonline dates it to 1870, of Northern men avoiding the draft in the Civil War,^[2] and the OED to 1884, in J. C. Harris.^[3] It is also spelled with a hyphen.^[2][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A hiding place: 1885, in the Century Magazine.^[3][2][4] Dictionary.com dates the noun to 1870–75.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word began in American English.^[2] It has kept its first meaning, a place of hiding or refuge,^[3][4] and British dictionaries note that it is used especially of a place where a lawbreaker hides.^[7][8] The OED also records it in attributive use.^[3] In American regional speech it has named a children's hiding game, and jokingly, as Roosevelt hideout or Nellie's hideout, an outdoor toilet.^[9]

Timeline

• 1885 – a hiding place.^[3][2][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place of refuge or concealment, especially one used by a criminal: The gang used an abandoned farmhouse as a hideout.^{[4][10][7][8]}

Related words

• hide

Usage notes

The Dictionary of American Regional English records hideout as the name of a children's game in which an object is hidden and searched for, and Roosevelt hideout and Nellie's hideout as joking names for an outhouse, from informants in Utah and Wyoming in 1967–68.^[9]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
7. ^ a b Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin