hullabaloo

Possibly a rhyming reduplication of halloo (used as a greeting or to catch attention; used in hunting to urge on pursuers), hilloa, hullo (variants of “hello”), and similar words.^[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌhʌləbəˈluː/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌhʌləbəˈlu/, /ˈhʌləbəˌlu/

• Audio (General American):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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• Hyphenation: hul‧la‧ba‧loo

hullabaloo (plural hullabaloos)

1. A clamour, a commotion; a fuss or uproar.

   Synonyms: ado, hype, to-do; see also Thesaurus:commotion

   They made such a hullabaloo about the change that the authorities were forced to change it back.

   • 1844, Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, or The New Generation, volume III, London: Henry Colburn, , pages 234–235:

     […] The truth of all this hullaballoo was that Rigby had a sly pension which, by an inevitable association of ideas, he always connected with the maintenance of an Aristocracy.

   • 1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, , →OCLC, part II:

     Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippo–meat, which couldn’t have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn’t, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard.

   • 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 32:

     'Sarah, could you bring me the calendar from the wall over there? Does it say the right date?' 'Two days behind – and small wonder no one tore it off with all the hullaballoo going on. Ever so pretty, isn't it?' said Sarah as she handed the calendar to Jessamy.

• hallaballoo, hallabaloo, hullaballoo
• hellaballoo, hellabaloo (both archaic)

hullabaloo (third-person singular simple present hullabaloos, present participle hullabalooing, simple past and past participle hullabalooed)

1. (intransitive) To make a commotion or uproar.
   • 1844, George Carter Needham, Street Arabs and Gutter Snipes: The Pathetic and Humorous Side of Young Vagabond Life in the Great Cities, with Records of Work for Their Reclamation, D. L. Guernsey:

     They roared, they danced, they hullaballoed, they pinched one another; they behaved like young savages – but I knew I had got them safe.

   • 1867, Rhoda Broughton, Cometh Up as a Flower: An Autobiography, volume I, London: Richard Bentley, , pages 53–54:

     "Nonsense, child," said my father, smiling. "Did you ever see a stone thrown into the pond? there's a great splash, and a few circles on the water, and that's about all, isn't it? Well, when I die there'll be a great splash of tears and hullaballooing, and a few circles of tender recollections, and then the surface will smooth itself over, and it'll be all right again."

   • 1952, Dylan Thomas, “Author’s Prologue”, in Collected Poems, 1934–1952‎, Dent, archived from the original on 5 March 2016:

     Ho, hullaballoing clan / Agape, with woe / In your beaks, on the gabbing capes!

   • 2012 October 30, Jessica Redmond, “It was all yellow: Some dude defaces a Rothko in the name of ‘yellowism’”, in Columbia Spectator‎:

     Twitter broke the news, and soon enough, the media hullaballooed over this latest act of art vandalism.

   • 2013 January 8, Rory Carroll, “CES 2013: TV companies hope size and sharpness are the future”, in The Guardian‎:

     In addition to size, manufacturers hope to attract buyers with added gadgetry despite disappointing sales of 3D televisions, an innovation hullaballooed at CES last year only to flop in stores.

• hullabaloo (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia