brouhaha

English

WOTD – 19 February 2011

Etymology

Borrowed from French brouhaha, but disputed as to where from before that. Possibly from Hebrew בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא‎ (barúkh habá, “welcome”, literally “blessed is he who comes”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbɹuː.hɑː.hɑː/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Noun

brouhaha (plural brouhahas)

1. A stir; a fuss or uproar.

   Synonyms: commotion, hubbub, kerfuffle; see also Thesaurus:commotion

   • 1972, John Drury Clark, “Halogens and Politics and Deep Space”, in Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 74:

     For as they were maneuvering the cylinder onto a dolly, it split and dumped one ton of chlorine trifluoride onto the floor. It chewed its way through twelve inches of concrete and dug a three-foot hole in the gravel underneath, filled the place with fumes which corroded everything in sight, and, in general, made one hell of a mess. Civil Defense turned out, and started to evacuate the neighborhood, and to put it mildly, there was quite a brouhaha before things quieted down. Miraculously, nobody was killed, but there was one casualty — the man who had been steadying the cylinder when it split. He was found some five hundred feet away, where he had reached Mach 2 and was still picking up speed when he was stopped by a heart attack.

   It caused quite a brouhaha when the school suspended one of its top students for refusing to adhere to the dress code.

   • 1981, “Elephant Talk”, in Discipline, performed by King Crimson:

     Talk, it's only talk / Babble, burble, banter / Bicker, bicker, bicker / Brouhaha, balderdash, ballyhoo / It's only talk / Back talk

   • 1999, “The Brouhaha”, in Hello Nasty, performed by Beastie Boys:

     What's all the fanfare, what's the to do / We're known to bring the hullabaloo / On stage or at the spa / Guaranteed we bring the brouhaha / ‘Cause it's a brouhaha

   • 2022 September 5, Roger Cohen, “Of Barbecues and Men: A Summer Storm Brews Over Virility in France”, in The New York Times‎^[1], →ISSN:

     Ms. Rousseau, a senior member of the Europe Écologie-Les Verts party, said in an interview that she was surprised by the sizzling brouhaha.

Translations

fuss, uproar

• Arabic: عَجِيج‎ (ar) m (ʕajīj), ضَجِيج‎ (ar) m (ḍajīj), هَرْج‎ (ar) m (harj)
• Catalan: gatzara (ca) f, aldarull (ca) m, cridòria (ca) f, rebombori (ca) m, brogit (ca) m, avalot (ca) m
• Finnish: kohu (fi)
• French: brouhaha (fr) m
• German: Aufruhr (de) m, Aufregung (de) f, Theater (de) n, Tumult (de) m
• Greek: οχλαγωγία (el) f (ochlagogía), βαβούρα (el) (vavoúra)
• Hungarian: felzúdulás (hu), cirkusz (hu), patália (hu)
• Japanese: 大騒ぎ (ōsawagi)
• Persian: همهمه، غوغا‎
• Portuguese: bafafá (pt) m
• Russian: шуми́ха (ru) f (šumíxa), сенса́ция (ru) f (sensácija)

French

Etymology

Disputed. Possibly by assimilation from Hebrew בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא‎ (barúkh habá, “blessed (be) who comes”), a collocation occurring in Psalm 118:26 and an interjection meaning “welcome” in Modern Hebrew. An alternative theory holds that the origin is onomatopoeic.

In regards to the semantic evolution to “noisy meeting”, compare ramdam, sabbat.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bʁu.a.a/

• Audio (FR)

  (file)

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

brouhaha m (plural brouhahas)

1. brouhaha
   • 1865, Jules Verne, chapter 2, in De la Terre à la Lune [From the Earth to the Moon], J. Hetzel et Compagnie, published 1868:

     Un brouhaha, une tempête d’exclamations accueillit ces paroles.

     A brouhaha, a gale of exclamations welcomed those words.

References

• “brouhaha”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
• Michael Quinion (2004), “Brouhaha”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, →ISBN.

Further reading

• “brouhaha”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.