hip hip hooray

English

Alternative forms

• hip hip hoorah
• hip hip hurrah

Etymology

Recorded as far back as 1803. The word hip was in use then as a meaningless syllable to get someone's attention. Hooray (or hurrah) goes back to 1686, and also had no specific meaning, used instead to get a person's attention.

Interjection

hip hip hooray

1. An exclamation of congratulations especially in response to a call for 'Three cheers for' the person.

Usage notes

A folk etymology for this interjection suggests it comes from an anti-Semitic German interjection (hep hep), but that is much too recent.

Translations

an exclamation of congratulations

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 万岁！万岁！万万岁！

• Czech: hip, hip, hurá
• Dutch: hieperdepiep hoera, hiep hiep hoera
• French: hip hip hip hourra
• German: hipp, hipp, hurra
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Italian: hip hip hip urrà, hip hip hip hurrà
• Norwegian: hipp hipp hurra
• Polish: hip hip hurra (pl)
• Portuguese: hip hip hurra
• Russian: гип-ги́п ура́ (gip-gíp urá), гип-ги́п-ура́ (ru) (gip-gíp-urá)
• Spanish: hip hip hurra
• Swedish: hipp hipp hurra

See also

• three cheers

References

• October 12, 2015. WordOrigins.org Dave Wilton.