hoot

hoot¹ cry, shout

Etymology

The word for the cry is inherited from Middle English huten, also houten and hoten,^[2][3][4][5] probably of imitative origin.^{[6][3][7][2][8][9][10]} The OED suggests that it represents an inarticulate sound like the hooting of owls or the toot of a horn, with the vowel u that carries farthest in distant calls,^[2] and compares Swedish huta, Middle High German hiuzen (“to call to the chase”), Danish huie (“to shout”) and French huer (“to hoot”).^[2] Skeat derived it from Swedish, from the interjection hut (“begone!”).^[11] The OED notes that the phonology is difficult: beside huten Middle English had hoten, perhaps a different formation, and the regular modern outcome of huten, hout, was used until the 17th century, when hoot took its place.^[2] Barnhart likewise takes hoot as an alteration of houten.^[12] The noun is formed from the verb.^[2][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To attack someone with shouts of derision or disapproval: about 1175, in the Ormulum.^[2] Etymonline and Barnhart date huten to about 1200,^[7][12] and Merriam-Webster gives the 13th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The verb first meant to shout or call out, and especially to shout at someone in scorn;^[2][12] Piers Plowman (1393) has it for driving a person away with jeers.^[2][12] From the 15th century it was used of the cry of birds, especially the owl;^[2][7][12] since 1883 it has been used of mechanical sounds such as a steam siren or a foghorn; in 1948 it was used of a driver sounding a car horn.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave the verb as "to drive with noise and shouts".^[13] The noun, a shout of disapproval, is dated by Barnhart to before 1450^[12] and by the OED to 1600;^[2] the owl's cry followed in 1791,^[2] and the sense of a motor horn in 1904.^[2] In the 20th century hoot came to mean "to laugh" (1926, in T. E. Lawrence)^[2][7] and, as a noun, a laugh or something very funny (1942).^[2][7] The sense "the smallest amount", in phrases like not give a hoot or two hoots, is American in origin: Green's Dictionary of Slang and the OED date it to 1878,^[14][2] Etymonline to 1891.^[7] The OED is unsure whether this sense comes from the noun or from the interjection hoot,^[2] and Green suggests a figurative use of the abrupt cry.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1175 – to assail someone with shouts of derision.^[2]
• before 1225 – to shout or call out; to toot a horn.^[2]
• 1393 – to drive someone away by shouting.^[2][12]
• before 1450 – noun, a shout or outcry.^[12]
• before 1500 – of an owl or other bird, to make its cry.^[2]
• 1612 – noun, a shout of disapproval.^[2][12]
• 1791 – noun, the cry of an owl.^[2]
• 1878 – the smallest amount, as in not give a hoot.^[2][14]
• 1883 – of a siren or whistle, to sound.^[2]
• 1926 – to laugh.^[2][7]
• 1942 – a laugh; something very funny.^[2][7]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of an owl, to make its long, wavering cry.^[15][3][2]
2. To shout or jeer in derision or disapproval; to drive someone away by such shouting: The crowd hooted the referee off the pitch.^[15][3][2]
3. To make a sound like an owl's cry; to sound a horn, siren or whistle.^[15][3][2]
4. (informal) To laugh loudly.^[15][2]

Noun

1. The cry of an owl.^[15][3][2]
2. A shout of derision or disapproval.^[15][3][2]
3. A sound like an owl's cry, such as that of a car horn or a train whistle.^[15][3][2]
4. (informal) A person or thing that is very funny: The party was a real hoot.^[15][2]
5. (informal) The smallest amount; a whit, chiefly in not give a hoot or two hoots.^[15][3][2]

Word family

• hooter
• hooty
• hootingly
• unhooted
• hoot owl

hoot² money

Etymology

The word for money is borrowed from Māori utu (“compensation, payment, price”).^[14][8][3] The OED takes it as a variant of utu, recorded in English from 1820, probably altered by association with the noun hoot; the single syllable may also partly reflect a regional Māori form.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In New Zealand, compensation for an injury according to Māori custom: 1841, in a letter of S. Revans, a rare sense now obsolete.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From compensation the word passed to money in general, in colloquial use in New Zealand and Australia: the OED dates this to 1864,^[2] while Green's Dictionary of Slang has it in South Australia in 1860, explained there as a slang name for money.^[14] Green records the forms hootoo, hout, hutu and oot,^[14] and the Shorter Oxford calls it now chiefly Australian.^[8]

Timeline

• 1841 – compensation for an injury, by Māori custom (obsolete).^[2]
• 1860 – money.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Australia and New Zealand, slang) money, especially money paid for work.^{[3][8][14][2]}