freighthopping

Etymology

From freight + hopping.

freighthopping means the act of surreptitiously boarding and riding a railroad freight car. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 83 out of 100.

Why this word is great

FREIGHTHOPPING — [Noun] The illicit practice of boarding and riding a railroad freight car without authorization, a clandestine journey taken in the belly of commerce. From freight (goods transported in bulk) + hopping (the act of jumping or boarding). Unlike "trainhopping" (which can imply the boarding of any rolling stock) or "hoboing" (which encompasses a whole culture of itinerant survival), freighthopping is the specific, gritty sacrament of motion itself. It is the percussive rhythm of steel wheels on jointed track, the smell of creosote and cold dust in an empty boxcar, and the fleeting, panoramic world framed by a moving doorway—a transient’s communion with the raw architecture of distance, a temporary possession of a stolen vector.

noun

The act of surreptitiously boarding and riding a railroad freight car.