Etymology

ululation

ulu·lat·ion
U1L1U1L1A1T1I1O1N1

Today it means: The act of ululating; a long, loud, wavering cry or howl. Full definition →

Latin ululātiō ← Proto-Indo-European *-tis
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*-tis
  2. Latin · borrowed fromululātiō
  3. English todayululation

] Borrowed from Latin ululātiō, from ululō (“to howl, shriek, yell”) (from a reduplicated Proto-Indo-European imitative root) + -ātiō (suffix forming nouns relating to some action or the result of an action) (from Proto-Indo-European *-tis (suffix forming abstract or action nouns from verb roots)). By surface analysis, ululate + -ion.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.