English

Verb

hustle ‎(third-person singular simple present hustles, present participle hustling, simple past and past participle hustled)

1. (intransitive) To rush or hurry.

   I'll have to hustle to get there on time.

   • 1922, Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt Chapter 12

     Men in dairy lunches were hustling to gulp down the food which cooks had hustled to fry

2. (transitive) To con or deceive; especially financially.

   The guy tried to hustle me into buying into a bogus real estate deal.

3. (transitive) To bundle, to stow something quickly.
   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     There was a person called Nana who ruled the nursery. Sometimes she took no notice of the playthings lying about, and sometimes, for no reason whatever, she went swooping about like a great wind and hustled them away in cupboards.

4. To dance the hustle, a disco dance.
5. To play deliberately badly at a game or sport in an attempt to encourage players to challenge.
6. To sell sex, to work as a pimp.
7. To be a prostitute, to exchange use of one's body for sexual purposes for money.
8. (informal) To put a lot of effort into one's work.
9. To push someone roughly, to crowd, to jostle.^[1]
   • 1915, George A. Birmingham, “chapter I”, in Gossamer (Project Gutenberg; EBook #24394), London: Methuen & Co., published 8 January 2013 (Project Gutenberg version), OCLC 558189256:

     There is an hour or two, after the passengers have embarked, which is disquieting and fussy. […] Passengers wander restlessly about or hurry, with futile energy, from place to place. Pushing men hustle each other at the windows of the purser's office, under pretence of expecting letters or despatching telegrams.

Descendants

• Dutch: hosselen

Translations

Noun

hustle ‎(plural hustles)

1. A state of busy activity.
2. A type of disco dance.
3. (prison slang) An activity, such as prostitution or reselling stolen items, that a prisoner uses to earn money in prison.

Derived terms

• hustle and bustle
• hustler
• hustly

Translations

Anagrams

• sleuth

References

1. ↑ J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner (prepared by), The Compact Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition (Claredon Press, Oxford 1991 [1989], ISBN 0-19-861258-3), page 799