Hullabaloo
//ˌhʌləbəˈluː// noun, verb
noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A clamour, a commotion; a fuss or uproar. countable, uncountable
"They made such a hullabaloo about the change that the authorities were forced to change it back."
- 2 disturbance usually in protest wordnet
Verb
- 1 To make a commotion or uproar. intransitive
"They roared, they danced, they hullaballoed, they pinched one another; they behaved like young savages – but I knew I had got them safe."
Example
More examples"Tom and Mary wanted to get married on the quiet to avoid all the hullabaloo."
Etymology
Possibly a rhyming reduplication of halloo (used as a greeting or to catch attention; used in hunting to urge on pursuers), hilloa, hullo (variants of “hello”), and similar words.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.