Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A loud confusing noise.
  • noun A confused situation; a tumult: synonym: noise.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A great noise of many confused voices or sounds; a tumult; uproar; riot.
  • noun An old game played by the Indians who formerly inhabited New England, with bones and a platter or tray, and which was accompanied with much noise and the shouting of the word ‘Hubhub’ or ‘Hubbub.’

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A loud noise of many confused voices; a tumult; uproar.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A confused uproar, commotion, tumult or racket.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun loud confused noise from many sources

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably of Irish origin; akin to Irish abb abb abb, an exclamation of defiance or aggression or abú, abó, a war cry.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Perhaps from Irish; compare Irish ababú! (a battle-cry), Gaelic ub! ub! (expressing contempt, etc.), ubh ubh! (expressing disgust).

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Examples

Comments

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  • Really, I just don't see what it's all about...

    December 7, 2009

  • See hokey-pokey.

    December 7, 2009