halloo

English

Alternative forms

• haloo (dated)

Etymology

From Middle English hallow (“pursue, urge on”), from Old French haloer, which is imitative.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /həˈluː/, /hæˈluː/

• Audio (Berkshire, UK):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -uː

Interjection

halloo

1. Used to greet someone, or to catch their attention.
2. Used in hunting to urge on the pursuers.
   • 1796, Gottfried Augustus Bürger, “The Chase”, in [Walter Scott], transl., The Chase, and William and Helen: Two Ballads, from the German […], Edinburgh: […] Mundell and Son, […], for Manners and Miller, […]; and sold by T[homas] Cadell, Jun. and W[illiam] Davies (successors to Mr. [Thomas] Cadell) […], →OCLC, stanza I, page 1:

     Earl Walter winds his bugle horn;
     To horſe, to horſe, halloo, halloo!
     His fiery courſer ſnuffs the morn,
     And thronging ſerfs their Lord purſue.

   • 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H.L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 65:

     "Halloo!" cried the goodwife, and away she ran after it, with the frying-pan in one hand and the ladle in the other, as fast as she could, and the children behind her, while the goodman came limping after, last of all.

Noun

halloo (plural halloos)

1. A shout of halloo.
   • 1962, Joan Aiken, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, New York: Doubleday, Chapter 3, p. 25,^[1]

     She was afraid that her faint cry would not be heard, but at least one member of the group responded to it, for there was an answering halloo, and a small figure detached itself from the rest and darted forward.

Verb

halloo (third-person singular simple present halloos or hallooes, present participle hallooing, simple past and past participle hallooed)

1. (intransitive) To shout halloo.
   • c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:

     For voice—I have lost it with hallooing and singing of anthems.

   • 1857, S. H. Hammond, Wild Northern Scenes‎^[2]:

     As our object was rather to enjoy the music of the chase, than to capture the deer, they shouted and hallooed as he entered the water, and he wheeled back, and went tearing in huge affright through the woods, up the island again.

   • 1907, William Hope Hodgson, The Boats of the "Glen Carrig"‎^[3]:

     As we ran, we hallooed, and so came upon the boy, and I saw that he had my sword.

   • 1917, Charles S. Brooks, There's Pippins And Cheese To Come‎^[4]:

     We hallooed again, to rouse the trapper.

2. (transitive) To encourage with shouts; to egg (someone) on.
   • 1692, Richard Davis, Truth and Innocency Vindicated against Falshood & Malice, London: Nath. and Robert Ponder, p. 6,^[5]

     There is no place left to suspect, but that there were Managers of the Party, who clap’d their hands, and halloo’d the giddy young People to such rash Undertakings.

   • 1718, Matthew Prior, Alma, or, The Progress of the Mind, Canto 2, in Poems on Several Occasions, London: J. Tonson and J. Barber, Volume 2, p. 101,^[6]

     Old JOHN halloo’s his hounds again:

   • 1735, George Berkeley, A Defence of Free-Thinking in Mathematics, London: J. Tonson, p. 12,^[7]

     “Let us burn or hang up all the Mathematicians in Great Britain, or halloo the mob upon them to tear them to pieces every Mother’s Son of them […] ”

   • 1838, William Gilmore Simms, “The Cherokee Embassage” in Carl Werner, an Imaginative Story, with Other Tales of Imagination, New York: George Adlard, Volume 2, pp. 187-188,^[8]

     He played with Jacko like a child—rolled with him about the decks—hallooed him on to all manner of mischief—clapped his hands and cheered him in his performance, and then, in his own language, pronounced a high eulogy upon his achievements.

   • 1915, Frederick Scott Oliver, Ordeal by Battle, London: Macmillan, Chapter 3, p. 29,^[9]

     It is not credible that Germany was blind to the all-but-inevitable results of letting Austria loose to range around, of hallooing her on, and of comforting her with assurances of loyal support.

3. (transitive) To chase with shouts or outcries.
   • 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[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene viii]:

     If I fly, Coriolanus,
     Holloa me like a hare.

   • 1694, Robert Ferguson, A Letter to the Right Honourable Sir John Holt, Kt. Lord Chief Justice of the Kings Bench, London, p. 8,^[10]

     […] the unhappy Man was halloo’d and persued to Death […]

   • 1915, E. D. Cuming, Fox and Hounds, London: Hodder and Stoughton, p. 7,^[11]

     Now, if you can keep your brother sportsmen in order, and put any discretion into them, you are in luck; they more frequently do harm than good: if it be possible, persuade those who wish to halloo the fox off, to stand quiet under the cover-side, and on no account to halloo him too soon […]

4. (transitive) To call or shout to; to hail.
   • 1955, W. H. Auden, “Lakes” in Selected Poetry of W. H. Auden, New York: Modern Library, 1959, p. 149,^[12]

     A lake allows an average father, walking slowly,

     To circumvent it in an afternoon,

     And any healthy mother to halloo the children

     Back to her bedtime from their games across:

   • 1974, James Purdy, The House of the Solitary Maggot, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, p. 300,^[13]

     She pulled her vehicle to an abrupt stop, and then hallooed him.

5. (transitive) To shout (something).
   • c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

     Halloo your name to the reverberate hills
     And make the babbling gossip of the air
     Cry out ‘Olivia!’

   • 1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], Mansfield Park: […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:

     […] the servants hallooed out their excuses from the kitchen.

Related terms

• hollo

Anagrams

• holloa