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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To utter the characteristic cry of an owl.
  2. v. To make a loud raucous cry, especially of derision or contempt.
  3. v. To shout down or drive off with jeering cries: hooted the speaker off the platform.
  4. v. To express or convey by hooting: hooted their disgust.
  5. n. The characteristic cry of an owl.
  6. n. A sound suggesting the cry of an owl, especially the sound of a horn.
  7. n. A cry of scorn or derision.
  8. n. Informal One that is hilariously funny: "Emmett, that skirt is a hoot!” ( Bobbie Ann Mason).
  9. idiom. not give To be completely indifferent to: I don't give a hoot what you think.
  10. interj. Scots Used to express annoyance or objection.
  11. n. Informal A hootenanny.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To cry out or shout in contempt.
  2. To cry as some owls: distinguished from screech.
  3. To drive or pursue with cries or shouts uttered in contempt; utter contemptuous cries or shouts at.
  4. n. A cry or shout in contempt.
  5. An exclamation expressive of dissatisfaction, of some degree of irritation, and sometimes of disbelief: equivalent to fie, tut, tush, pshaw, etc. Also hoot-toot, hout, hout-tout.
  6. n. The cry of an owl.
  7. n. Money paid as compensation; payment; recompense; remuneration.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A derisive cry or shout.
  2. n. The cry of an owl.
  3. n. A fun event, a blast
  4. v. To cry out or shout in contempt.
  5. v. To make the cry of an owl.
  6. v. To assail with contemptuous cries or shouts; to follow with derisive shouts.
  7. adj. hot

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To cry out or shout in contempt.
  2. v. To make the peculiar cry of an owl.
  3. v. To assail with contemptuous cries or shouts; to follow with derisive shouts.
  4. n. A derisive cry or shout.
  5. n. The cry of an owl.
  6. n. A very funny event, person, or experience.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. to utter a loud clamorous shout
  2. n. a cry or noise made to express displeasure or contempt
  3. v. utter the characteristic sound of owls
  4. n. a loud raucous cry (as of an owl)
  5. n. something of little value

Etymologies

  1. Middle English houten, of imitative origin.

Examples

  • “July 13th, 2009 2: 16 pm ET what's a hoot is this woman could be as dumb as a box of rocks ... and because she's hispanic ... she's the 'one.”

    Graham: Confirmation likely barring 'complete meltdown'

  • “It was probably a hoot of a character to watch when audiences didn't know who he was as well as they were about to --- The Odd Couple's just a few years in the future --- but looking back forty years now the hoot is in seeing him doing what would become his stock in trade, the grouchy, rumpled, slightly amoral cynic with a good heart somewhere underneath it all.”

    When the grumpy old man was a grumpy young man

  • “I would never use the word hoot, and I respectfully ask that every time my name is brought up she would stop using the word "hoot.”

    Gawker

  • “I would never use the word hoot and I respectfully ask that every time my name is brought up she would stop using the word "hoot.”

    The Hollywood Liberal

  • “If that is made clear to the participants and the debate is refereed diligently to avoid the use of false dichotomy argumentation, then the “debate” would be a real hoot which is to say, the ID schmucks would have nothing to say.”

    Bring On the Chiquitas! - The Panda's Thumb

  • “Well, Life Among The Savages is simply one long, uninterrupted hoot from the start, when Jackson, her husband and their two small children move out of New York and into a gloriously eccentric house in deepest Vermont, right until the finish, when Jackson brings her fourth baby home to greet the household (after her husband and eldest son have been surreptitiously running a book on when she’ll finally have it).”

    Seeing The Funny Side « Tales from the Reading Room

  • “What’s an even bigger hoot is the “godless communism” rap the religious put forth.”

    Think Progress » Ann Coulter may have plagiarized

  • “At the time, the only way for struggling comics to be seen was something called a hoot.”

    Simon & Schuster: Last Words

  • “What makes [Kate's] tale such a hoot are the spot-on details that crowd her life and her brain – and will be familiar to any woman who's ever tried to dress a squirming toddler while calling the office to explain why she's late ...”

    I Don't Know How She Does It: Summary and book reviews of I Don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson.

  • “I would never use the word hoot, and I respectfully ask that every time my name is brought up she would stop using the word 'hoot.”

    NBC Los Angeles - News Top Stories

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  • bilby "MENENIUS: How! Was it we? we lov'd him, but, like beasts,
    And cowardly nobles, gave way unto your clusters,
    Who did hoot him out o' the city."
    - William Shakespeare, 'The Tragedy of Coriolanus'. Aug 29, 2009

‘hoot’ has been looked up 2092 times, loved by 3 people, added to 32 lists, commented on 1 time, and has a Scrabble score of 7.