hollo

English

Alternative forms

• holler, holla, holloa, hollow, hulloa

Etymology

See halloo, and compare holla.

Interjection

hollo

1. (dated) Hey, hello
   • 1609, “Everie Woman In Her Humor”, in A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV.‎:

     And then to Apollo hollo, trees, hollo.

   • 1922, Jacob Grimm, Wilhelm Grimm, Grimm's Fairy Stories‎:

     Presently up came the clerk; and when he saw his master, the parson, running after the three girls, he was greatly surprised, and said, "Hollo! hollo! your reverence! whither so fast!

2. (UK, dated) hello (expressing puzzlement or discovery)
   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     ‘Hollo!’ he cried. ‘The blind’s down!’ I had noticed, when we were outside, that the blind was down at the front room window.

Noun

hollo (plural hollos)

1. A cry of "hollo"
   • 1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, in Coleridge's Ancient Mariner and Select Poems‎:

     And a good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariners' hollo!

   • 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe‎:

     "I always add my hollo," said the yeoman, "when I see a good shot, or a gallant blow."

   • 1910, W.F. Drannan, Chief of Scouts‎:

     The old chief stepped to the entrance of the wigwam and made a peculiar noise between a whistle and a hollo, and in a few minutes there were hundreds of Indians there, both bucks and squaws.

Verb

hollo (third-person singular simple present holloes, present participle holloing, simple past and past participle holloed)

1. To cry "hollo"
   • 1899, J. S. LeFanu, Uncle Silas‎:

     And Tom made another loutish salute, and cut the conference short by turning off the path and beginning to hollo after some trespassing cattle.

   • 1904, Edward Dowden, Robert Browning‎:

     Better hollo abstract ideas through the six-foot Alpine horn of prose.