Hooley

//ˈhuːli// name, noun

name, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A noisy celebration or party; also, an evening of traditional music and dance. Ireland

    "At a family gathering, a wake or a Christmas hooley, other children would step forward to sing a rhyme or dance a hornpipe."

  2. 2
    Chiefly in the form to blow a hooley: a strong wind; a gale. Scotland

    "It’s blowing a hooley out there."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A surname. countable, uncountable
  2. 2
    A small village in Reigate and Banstead borough, Surrey, England, just outside Greater London (OS grid ref TQ2856). countable, uncountable

Example

More examples

"At a family gathering, a wake or a Christmas hooley, other children would step forward to sing a rhyme or dance a hornpipe."

Etymology

The etymology of sense 1 (“noisy celebration or party”) is unknown. Sense 2 (“strong wind”) is possibly from one of the following: * Borrowed from Orkney Scots hool(an) (“strong wind”) + English -ie (diminutive suffix). Hoolan is derived from Norn (unattested), from Old Norse ýlun (“howling, wailing”), from ýla (“to howl”) (ultimately onomatopoeic) + -un (suffix forming nouns). * From sense 1.

More for "hooley"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.