Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To yell or shout.
- v. Informal To complain.
- v. To shout out (words or phrases). See Synonyms at shout.
- n. A yell or shout; a call.
- n. Informal A complaint or gripe.
- adj. Chiefly Upper Southern U.S. Variant of hollow.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A common vulgar form of hollo.
Wiktionary
- n. A yell, shout.
- n. By extension, any communication to get somebody's attention.
- n. In South Midland and Southern (dialects of American English), a hollow.
- n. A rural road in the Appalachians in the U.S.A.
- v. To yell or shout.
- v. To call out one or more words
- v. To complain, gripe
WordNet 3.0
- n. a very loud utterance (like the sound of an animal)
- v. complain.
- v. shout out
- v. utter a sudden loud cry
- n. a small valley between mountains
Etymologies
- From obsolete hollo, hail!, stop!; see hello.
Examples
“But apparently a "holler" is just a "hollow" – a valley between mountains – in West Virginia.”
“But the opener did turn a bit testy in the eighth inning when Grant Balfour hit J.D. Drew in the right shoulder with a high fastball, prompting a few Red Sox to holler from the bench.”
“But the opener did turn a bit testy in the eighth when Grant Balfour hit J.D. Drew in the right shoulder with a high fastball, prompting a few Red Sox to holler from the bench.”
“Some folks want to conserve energy and avoid making the trek to the 4th floor walk-up apartment, so they will just holler from the street below.”
“His mother (?) and another 40-something woman were helping him carry things down the stairs, as were two teenaged girls -- one of which I would surely recognize if she were to holler from the stairwell (where the acoustics promise hearty echos), HEY, BRADLEY IS PISSING IN THE PARKING LOT!”
“Then claim your title or holler at the guard so you can conduct your business elsewhere.”
“Also: I have a friend who is a casting director and he said that he spent all of Wednesday looking for "holler" Canadians with weird flat faces.”
“Similar to the posting by Jeff4066, "Fair to middlin '" was a common response to, "How are you?" in my hometown, and I was in college before it was really driven home that "holler" isn't proper English for "large ditch, etc ...”
“That's why we put that it's in a 'holler' in the mountains.”
“Some of these 'holler' people -- because they are insular and clannish, and they don't leave their area -- there is literally inbreeding, and the people there often have a different kind of look.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘holler’.
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sound (loud)
words for loud sounds
( descriptive, randomness )crash, thud, bump, thump, boom, smash, explode, roar, scream, screech, short, yell and 167 more...
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Water always flows downhill
The path of least resistance, watercourses, plumbing....
swale, hollow, creek, crick, depression, holler, draw, ditch, corrie, cwm, continental divide, stream and 66 more...
dontcry It was 'tiger' for me, too -- but I remember hearing the other version from time to time when we moved around the country. Nov 4, 2008
bilby The book from which I transcribed this version, using tiger rather than what rhymes with Tigger, was published in 1957. Nov 4, 2008
sarra I grew up with your mother's version, too, rolig. Nov 4, 2008
rolig "Tiger" was what I learned as a child from my parents, who understood that the version they had grown up with, or at least my Virginian mother had grown up with, in which an African-American was the object of the hunt, was no longer acceptable in polite society. Nov 4, 2008
qroqqa Oh, I didn't know 'tiger' was traditional. I have learnt something. Nov 4, 2008
bilby
Eenie, meenie, minie, mo,
Catch a tiger by the toe,
If he hollers let him go,
Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.
- traditional. Nov 4, 2008