The story
- Old French · derived fromcrier“cry out, shout”
- English todaycry havoc
From Middle English, from the Anglo-Norman phrase crier havok (“cry havoc”) (a signal to soldiers to seize plunder), from Old French crier (“cry out, shout”) + havot (“pillaging, looting”).
Words from the same roots
Old Frenchcrier all →
havoc
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.