Hoosier

Posted by ESC on August 15, 2001

In Reply to: What the heck is a Hoosier? posted by Markitos on August 15, 2001

: Once again I came across an Indianan--otherwise--known as a Hoosier--and I asked him what the heck a Hoosier was, to which I received the only answer I've ever gotten to this query, "It's a person from Indiana."

: Anybody know why?

HOOSIER - "A nickname for a native of Indiana, which is called the Hoosier State. 'Hoosier' probably derives from the English dialect word 'hoozer' for anything large. In America the altered word 'hoozier' came to mean a big person, a burly frontiersman, and the like, until about 1826 we find it applied to natives of Indiana, once a frontier state." From the Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).