The story
- French · derived fromhoup-là
- English todayhoopla
Earlier houp-la, hoop la, first attested in c. 1877, probably from French houp-là, oup-là (“upsadaisy, upsy-daisy”), a cry to various animals close to humans like horses and dogs, of likely onomatopoeic origin (but see là). Compare interjections like whoop, ahoy, hoo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.