hell-hound, you old

   In its occasional use as a vocative, ‘hell-hound’ means something like ‘fiendish person’. When two old friends meet in Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis, ‘the two men shook hands a dozen times and, in the Western fashion, bumbled, “Well, well, well, well, you old hell-hound, you old devil, how are you anyway? You old horse-thief, maybe it ain’t good to see you again.”’ For a similar exchange of friendly insults in another Sinclair Lewis novel, see also Horse-thief, you old. For an earlier use of ‘hell-hound’ used insultingly, see also the quotation under Ragamuffin.