hubbub

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“
When the hubbub was a little over, he advanced and shook hands with his father with a certain dignity.

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Definitions (7)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun Loud noise; din. See Synonyms at noise.
  2. noun Confusion; tumult.
  3. Word History
    It has often been remarked that the early Celtic inhabitants of Britain contributed very little to the stock of English words. Perhaps this should not surprise us, given the difficult relations over the centuries between the people of Germanic stock and the people of Celtic stock in England and Ireland. It seems likely that a certain English contempt resides in the adoption of the word hubbub from a Celtic source, which is probably related to ub ub ubub, a Scots Gaelic interjection expressing contempt, or to abu, an ancient Irish war cry. In any case, hubbub was first recorded (1555) in the phrase Irish hubbub and meant "the confused shouting of a crowd.” In addition to the senses it has developed, hubbub was again used, possibly in an unflattering way, by the New England colonists as a term for a rambunctious game played by Native Americans.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (2)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Time is wanted—or the hubbub, and flurry, and excitement created by ubiquitous sesquipedalian advertisement. —  Autobiography of Anthony Trollope
  • God long prosper him; keep him duly apart from that bottomless hubbub which is not, at all cheering! —  The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II
  • My, oh my, I wonder what all the hubbub is about, especially when women's bared bodies are used to sell everything from beer to ballgames. —  Progressive Bloggers
  • Listen to Alec Baldwin's voicemail message to see what all the hubbub is about. —  Paula Mooney's Tips - Get blog readers and make money online...
  • Many people west and north of Milwaukee County scratched their heads, wondering what the hubbub was all about. —  JSOnline.com
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This word has been looked up 107 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

uproar ·  clamor ·  tumult ·  din ·  outcry ·  babel ·  blare ·  babble ·  bustle ·  pandemonium ·  clatter ·  racket
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Probably of Irish Gaelic origin; akin to Scottish Gaelic ubub, an interjection of aversion or contempt.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Formerly also hobub, hooboob, also whoobub (apparently simulating whoop, hoop); also extended or reduplicated hubbubboo, hubbleshow, hubble-shubble—words showing imitative variation of a base *hub, prob. of interjectional origin, but perhaps in part a form of hoop, shout.
 

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/ˈhəbəb/
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