Definitions

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

  • noun archaic A noisy and disorderly tumult and confusion, especially as of battle.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

A combination of hurling and burling.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word hurlyburly.

Examples

  • Even though it was only about 10 a.m., the hurlyburly of tourists and vendors was already under way.

    Sunday: Hollywood! : Scrubbles.net 2009

  • Even though it was only about 10 a.m., the hurlyburly of tourists and vendors was already under way.

    2009 October : Scrubbles.net 2009

  • When it was built on land that had belonged to Audubon the location -- what we now call Washington Heights -- was still bucolic, suggesting its apartness from the hurlyburly of the city.

    Howard Kissel: The American Academy Howard Kissel 2011

  • When it was built on land that had belonged to Audubon the location -- what we now call Washington Heights -- was still bucolic, suggesting its apartness from the hurlyburly of the city.

    Howard Kissel: The American Academy Howard Kissel 2011

  • I hope amid the hurlyburly of postmodern life, you will find a few quiet moments to recall the joy of Our Lord's Resurrection.

    St. Monica's, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin 2009

  • The final frames of MIRACLE MILE reminded me of the last reel of Don Siegel's INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS 1956, as hero and heroine run hand and hand through the hurlyburly that is the end of days.

    A certain quality of failing light Arbogast 2009

  • His admission, and his extrapolation of it, is funny and amusing, but it leads to a serious confession: that he lives a life separate from "the center ring of adult life, the hurlyburly of business and domesticity, where the normal grownups live."

    Let's Talk About Love: A Journey to the End of Taste 2009

  • His admission, and his extrapolation of it, is funny and amusing, but it leads to a serious confession: that he lives a life separate from "the center ring of adult life, the hurlyburly of business and domesticity, where the normal grownups live."

    Archive 2009-11-01 2009

  • Your limited understanding of the situation in the ME coupled with your good intentioned but confused take on hamas/gaza can only be the product of the kind of naivete that exists in the rarefied atmosphere of campus life and or some other safe protected little enviroment, far away from the hurlyburly of reality as it exists in various parts of the world.

    On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with... 2009

  • It's his terse, machine gun readings of her automatic writing scribblings that really sell the scene for me because they ground the supernatural hurlyburly in a halo of realism that makes the scary stuff really stick out.

    "It doesn't want people" Arbogast 2009

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • First Witch:

    When shall we three meet again

    In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

    Second Witch:

    When the hurlyburly's done,

    When the battle's lost and won.

    Shakespeare, *Macbeth*, Act I sc. i.

    February 13, 2007