1865. G. A. Sala, Trip to Barbary, ch. vii. The hotel at Marseilles was full of our countrymen of the order known at Lane's and Limmer's as howling swells.
1887. Household Words, 11 June, 116. Let's hook it; that Jenny Morris is such an howling swell that she won't wait for any one.
1889. Licensed Vict. Gaz., 8 Feb. The Hon. Juggins was what is popularly known as a howling swell.
1892. Anstey, Model Music-Hall, 146. And all the while your heart was given to a howling cad.
Hoxter, subs, (old).—1. An inside pocket.
1834. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood bk. III., ch. v. No slour'd hoxter my snipes could stay.
2. (Royal Military Academy).—Extra drill. [Corruption of extra.] Fr., le bal.
1887. Barrère, Argot and Slang. The hoxter consists in the painful ordeal of being compelled to turn out of bed at an early hour, and march up and down under the watchful eye of a corporal.
Hoys. See Hoist.
Hoyt. See Hoit.
Hub, subs. (American).—1. Boston. Also, Hub of the Universe. [The description is Oliver Wendell Holmes's.] Since extended to other centres or chief cities (see quot. 1876).
1869. Boston Herald, Dec. He is to have a quintette club of amateurs with him, from the Hub.
1872. Daily Telegraph, 4 July. Boston claims to be the Hub of the universe; but New York grandiloquently asserts itself to be the universal wheel itself.
1872. Daily Telegraph, Dec. The wealth of the Hub of the Universe, as Bostonians delight to call their city, is very great.
1876. Daily News, 18 Jan. Calcutta . . . swaggers as if it were the hub of the Universe.
1888. Boston Daily Globe. The typical girl of the Hub has been much written about in the novels of the period, and without doubt she is worth all the attention bestowed upon her.
2. (colloquial).—A husband. See Hubby.
Hubble-bubble, subs, (colloquial).—1. See quots.
1748. F. Dyche, Dictionary (5th Ed.). Hubble-Bubble (s.) a confused noise made by a talkative person, who speaks so quick, that it is difficult to understand what he says or means.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. Hubble-bubble. Confusion. A hubble bubble fellow, a man of confused ideas, or one thick of speech, whose words sound like water bubbling out of a bottle.
2. (common).—A hookah; a pipe by which the smoke is passed through water.
1811. Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. Hubble-bubble . . . Also an instrument used for smoaking through water in the East Indies, called likewise a caloon and hooker.
1868. Ouida, Under Two Flags, ch. xxii. The Moor, warmly grateful, was ever ready to give him a cup of coffee and a hubble-bubble in the stillness of his dwelling.
1887. Field, 15 Oct. Off I went down the ravine, and half a mile below came to Besan quietly smoking his hubble-bubble.
1891. W. C. Russell, Ocean Tragedy, p. 130. A burning atmosphere sickly with the smell of the incense of the hubble-bubble, with a flavour of hot curry about.
Hubble-de-shuff, adv. (old).—Confusedly.—Lex. Bal.
Hubbub, subs, (old: now recognised).—See quots.
d. 1639. Robert Carey (Earl of Monmouth), Memoirs, 1759, p. 155. This made a great hub-bub in our Court.
1667. Milton, Paradise Lost, ii., 951. A universal hubbub wild, Of stunning sounds.
