DictionaryAI

hollo

USHAH-loh/ˈhɑloʊ/UKHOL-oh/ˈhɒləʊ/

Verbholloes, holloing, holloed

Noun pluralhollos

4 meanings of hollo

Practice

  1. 1
    interjectiondated
    An exclamation used to greet someone or to call for attention.

    Hollo, good neighbor, what brings you out so early?

    And then to Apollo hollo, trees, hollo.
    1609, “Everie Woman In Her Humor”, in A Collection Of Old English Plays

    Similarhello, hey, ho

    Oppositegoodbye, farewell

    Note

    A hail from older English, kin to halloo and holla, and now dated. It is a call more than a quiet greeting. In the 1922 Grimm's Fairy Stories it is doubled and aimed at someone moving away: "Hollo! hollo! your reverence! whither so fast!" In modern prose it signals a period voice. For an ordinary greeting today, hello is the safe choice.

  2. 2
    verbintransitive
    To shout out loudly, especially to hail someone or attract attention.

    Hunters hollo to one another as the chase moves through the woods.

    She holloed from the riverbank, hoping the boatman would hear.

    Similarshout, call, yell, holler, cry

    Oppositewhisper

    Note

    The verb keeps its final -o and adds -es in the third person, as echoes does: holloes, holloing, holloed. It can take after for whatever is being shouted at. J. S. LeFanu's Uncle Silas (1899) has Tom hollo after trespassing cattle. Edward Dowden's Robert Browning (1904) gives it a direct object and a figurative turn: "hollo abstract ideas through the six-foot Alpine horn of prose."

  3. 3
    nouncountable
    A loud cry given to hail someone or attract attention.

    His hollo carried across the field to the workers below.

    The hunters answered each other with sharp hollos through the trees.

    Similarshout, cry, call, hail, whoop

    Note

    The cry treated as a thing that can be given, owned and counted, with the plural hollos. Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1798) has the albatross come "to the mariners' hollo." In Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819), a yeoman will "add my hollo" to a good shot. Phrases like these, with a possessive in front, are its natural setting.

Less common meaning

  1. 4
    interjectiondatedUK
    An exclamation expressing surprise, puzzlement, or sudden discovery.

    Hollo, what have we here tucked behind the shelf?

    ‘Hollo!’ he cried. ‘The blind’s down!’ I had noticed, when we were outside, that the blind was down at the front room window.
    1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle

    Similarhello, aha, oh

    Note

    Here nobody is being hailed. The speaker is reacting to something just noticed, and the British, dated flavor shows in Richard Marsh's The Beetle (1897): "'Hollo!' he cried. 'The blind's down!'" The exclamation comes first and the discovery follows it. That is the easiest way to tell it from the greeting, which is addressed to a person rather than to a surprise.

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