Hoopie is a slang term with multiple possible means.
Slang term for West Virginians "Hoopie" is a derogatory term for people from the northern panhandle of West Virginia. The term is in common use in the Upper Ohio River Valley--northern West Virginia, eastern Ohio and southwestern Pennsylvania.
This bit of regional slang came into use in the area in and around East Liverpool, Ohio. In the 19th-century, East Liverpool was the site of a substantial amount of pottery manufacture. In the days before cardboard boxes and Bubble Wrap, pottery was packed in wooden barrels, with bundles of straw used as cushioning to reduce the chance of breakage during shipment.
These barrels were built at local pottery cooper shops. The coopers used split saplings to serve as the hoops holding the barrel staves in place. They did this by winding the sapling around the barrel and then weaving together the ends, or using a small nail to hold the ends together. Iron hoops were expensive and therefore not widely used.
People living in the back hills near East Liverpool would come to town carrying bundles of the split saplings, which they would sell to the cooper shops. They would then use the cash to buy things they could not make at home, such as salt and gunpowder.
Because the sellers were often poor, ragged and illiterate hill folk, the townspeople looked down on them and derogatorily referred to them as "hoopies" because they brought the hoops into town. The term became entrenched in the area and remains in use to this day, along with its corollaries, "hillbilly" and "hilljack."
Slang term for a type of truck Hoopie is the name given to a straight truck used in the trucking industry. Hoopies sometimes have a lift gate and/or refrigeration units attached to the "box" of the truck. Hoopies are used frequently for residential deliveries, or for deliveries in which the streets are very narrow or lack parking.
In rural northwestern Pennsylvania, a "hoopie" is a vehicle made from a car or truck chassis, and homemade seats. Not street-legal, it is driven only on trails in the woods.
In Michigan, African-Americans sometimes refer to a junky car as a "hooptie".
I am offended that in today's society that widely used sources for information show predjudice by continuing to call words like hillbilly and hoopie as derogatory terms. These terms are an inherent form of their respective local cultures and these peple are just as proud of their heritage as any other in this great country. So I ask that you treat them with the same respect that you would want for yourself and remove all derogatory reference in these definitions.
Guest
2. 05-05-2010 19:12
Here's the story behind the term "hoopies
Guest
3. 07-07-2010 15:59
According to my deceased grandmother, hoopie originates in WV before intering the panhandle and tri-state area. She claimed that local people used the iron bands around barrels to race and play with. Two boards attached together in the shape of a cross was used to push an iron band. The iron bands rolled like a wheel. Other areas in WV did not have iron bands for barrels and so those who did were called hoopies.
Guest
4. 20-11-2010 23:45
According to my deceased parents and grandparents a hoopie is anyone in Wv that lives south of the Newell bridge.
Guest
5. 08-08-2011 05:41
Exscuse me but hippie is down south in west Virginia. Where they made hoops for wagon wheels and rain barrels we learned that in west Virginia history class and when we would go hunting they would ask where u were going and you would say down hoopie
