Nothing doing
A loosely drawn circle, reported to mean “nothing doing”: no use trying here or going this way.
Meaning
Dan Beard (1918) described “a carelessly drawn circle” chalked on a fence as meaning nothing doing, no use travelling this way, and a circle on the shaft of an arrow as nothing doing in that direction. A Boston article printed in 1908 gave the same reading for “a cipher mark”.
Origin and history
The circle is the sign the sources agree on least.
One circle, five meanings
The Historic Graffiti Society collected the meanings given to a plain circle between 1890 and 1931: “religious” in the Seward Independent of 1890, “nothing doing or no use” in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of 1911, “good people reside here” in A-No. 1’s Hobo-Camp-Fire-Tales of the same year, a woman who calls the police and hates hoboes in the Bismarck Tribune of 1922, and “out” or “get out” in the San Francisco Examiner of 1931. A code with that much disagreement, the society argues, cannot have been in wide use. With a cross inside, the circle meant food given here.
Read next
- Next in Hobo symbolsDangerA rectangle with a dot in the middle, reported to mean danger, often a dangerous man.
- The same shape in Yōkai and creatures of Japanese folkloreTanuki (raccoon dog)The tanuki, the Japanese raccoon dog, is a shape-shifter in folklore that drums on its belly, disguises itself as a monk and plays tricks on travellers. Since the 1950s its pottery figure, in a hat and holding a sake flask, has stood at shop doors for luck.
See also
Food given here, Kind woman lives here, Religious talk for a meal, Care if you are sick, Gentleman lives here, Dog here.
Sources
- The American Boys’ Book of Signs, Signals and Symbols, Dan Beard, J. B. Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1918 (Cornell scan on the Internet Archive), Internet Archive, ch. II, fig. 3; ch. IV, fig. 58
- Signs of Tramp World: How They Chalk Upon Fences Advice to Their Fellow-Hobos, syndicated from Boston; Dakota Farmers’ Leader (Canton, S.D.), 13 March 1908, page 6, Library of Congress, Chronicling America
- Hobo Signs: Code of the Road?, 2 February 2020, updated 12 February 2022, The Historic Graffiti Society, Disagreement Among Signs
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
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