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cry havoc. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
cry havoc, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
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English
Etymology
From Middle English, from the Anglo-Norman phrase crier havok (“cry havoc”) (a signal to soldiers to seize plunder), from Old French crier (“cry out, shout”) + havot (“pillaging, looting”).
Verb
cry havoc (third-person singular simple present cries havoc, present participle crying havoc, simple past and past participle cried havoc)
- (obsolete) To shout out 'Havoc!'; that is, to give an army the order to plunder.
1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):Cry 'Havoc,' and let slip the dogs of war
c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies (First Folio), London: Isaac Iaggard, and Ed Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):Do not cry havoc, where you should but hunt
1961 Aug, George Steiner, “Homer and the Scholars”, in The Atlantic Monthly, page 77:War and mortality cry havoc, yet the center holds. That center is the affirmation that actions of body and heroic spirit are in themselves a thing of beauty, that renown shall outweigh the passing terrors of death, and that no catastrophe, not even the fall of Troy, is final.