hullabaloo

plural hullabaloos · alternative hallaballoo · alternative hallabaloo · alternative hulabaloo · alternative hullaballoo · alternative hellaballoo · alternative hellabaloo

1. countableuncountableA clamour, a commotion; a fuss or uproar.First known use 17th c.

   They made such a hullabaloo about the change that the authorities were forced to change it back.

   4 more examples

   […]The truth of all this hullaballoo was that Rigby had a sly pension which, by an inevitable association of ideas, he always connected with the maintenance of an Aristocracy.

   1844, Benjamin Disraeli, Coningsby, or The New Generation, volume III, London: Henry Colburn, […], pages 234–235

   Certainly they had brought with them some rotten hippo–meat, which couldn’t have lasted very long, anyway, even if the pilgrims hadn’t, in the midst of a shocking hullabaloo, thrown a considerable quantity of it overboard.

   1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part II

   'Sarah, could you bring me the calendar from the wall over there? Does it say the right date?' 'Two days behind – and small wonder no one tore it off with all the hullaballoo going on. Ever so pretty, isn't it?' said Sarah as she handed the calendar to Jessamy.

   1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 32

   He was so fascinated by the sight of this bald wolf that he would have lost his flock, perhaps himself been eaten and certainly been beaten to the bone for negligence had not the goats themselves raised their heads, snuffed danger and run off, bleating and whinnying, so that the men came, firing guns, making hullabaloo, scaring the wolves away.

   1982, Angela Carter, “Peter and the Wolf”, in T. J. Binding, editor, Firebird 1: Writing Today, Harmondsworth, Greater London: Penguin Books/Allen Lane, →ISBN, page 42

   Synonyms: ado, hype, to-do, ado, argy-bargy, bangarang, bobbery, brouhaha

present singular third person hullabaloos · participle present hullabalooing · participle past hullabalooed · past hullabalooed

1. intransitiveTo make a commotion or uproar.

   Ho, hullaballoing clan / Agape, with woe / In your beaks, on the gabbing capes!

   1952, Dylan Thomas, “Author’s Prologue”, in Collected Poems, 1934–1952, Dent, archived from the original on 05 Mar 2016

   4 more examples

   They roared, they danced, they hullaballoed, they pinched one another; they behaved like young savages – but I knew I had got them safe.

   1844, George Carter Needham, Street Arabs and Gutter Snipes: The Pathetic and Humorous Side of Young Vagabond Life in the Great Cities, with Records of Work for Their Reclamation, D. L. Guernsey

   "Nonsense, child," said my father, smiling. "Did you ever see a stone thrown into the pond? there's a great splash, and a few circles on the water, and that's about all, isn't it? Well, when I die there'll be a great splash of tears and hullaballooing, and a few circles of tender recollections, and then the surface will smooth itself over, and it'll be all right again."

   1867, Rhoda Broughton, Cometh Up as a Flower: An Autobiography, volume I, London: Richard Bentley, […], pages 53–54

   Twitter broke the news, and soon enough, the media hullaballooed over this latest act of art vandalism.

   2012 October 30, Jessica Redmond, “It was all yellow: Some dude defaces a Rothko in the name of ‘yellowism’”, in Columbia Spectator

   In addition to size, manufacturers hope to attract buyers with added gadgetry despite disappointing sales of 3D televisions, an innovation hullaballooed at CES last year only to flop in stores.

   2013 January 8, Rory Carroll, “CES 2013: TV companies hope size and sharpness are the future”, in The Guardian