hoot

hoot · noun, verb¹

1. Old Swedish · derived fromhuta“to cast out in contempt”
2. Middle English · inherited fromhouten
3. English todayhoot

From Middle English houten, huten, hoten, assumed to be of North Germanic origin: Swedish hut! (“begone!”, interjection) (also dialectal Norwegian hut, Bornholm Danish hut, hot), Swedish huta (“to drive someone away (with calls)”), Old Swedish huta (“to cast out in contempt”), related to Swedish hojta (“to holler”), hojt (“a holler”), further related to Middle High German hiuzen, hūzen (“to call to pursuit”). Swedish hut is the common command to call off and silence barking (hunting) dogs on the pursuit. Compare Swedish veta hut (“know one's place, like a dog”, literally “to know 'hoot' (the command)”). The Middle High German terms could suggest an earlier Proto-Germanic (hunting dog command?) *hūt- (“to command barking en pursuit?”). Maybe cognate to shout? Ultimately onomatopoeic. Compare Old Norse hutututu (“brr”), Norwegian hutra, Swedish huttra, huttla, Danish hudre, Low German hudern, German huttern (“to shiver”). Further compare English hoy, Dutch hui, Low German hoi, Norwegian hoi, Swedish hoj, Danish hoj, huj (“ho, hallo”).

hoot · noun²

1. Māori · borrowed fromutu“payment, revenge, payback”
2. English todayhoot

A variant of utu (influenced by etymology 1), borrowed from Māori utu (“payment, revenge, payback”).

Words from the same roots