hullo

• (UK) IPA^(key): /hʌˈləʊ/, /həˈləʊ/

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hullo

1. (UK, New Zealand) Alternative form of hello (Greeting.)
   • 1918 August, Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Bliss”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, page 126:

     There he is, now. Bang went the front door open and shut. Harry shouted: “Hullo, you people. Down in five minutes.”

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, “II, XV, AND XIX”, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

     “Mr Wooster?” “Oh, hullo, Lady Wickham.”
     [...] “Hullo, Bobbie,” I said. “Hullo, Bertie,” she said. “Hullo, Upjohn,” I said. The correct response to this would have been “Hullo, Wooster”, but he blew up in his lines and merely made a noise like a wolf with its big toe caught in a trap.
     [...] But as I approached the [telephone] and unhooked the thing you unhook, I was far from being at my most nonchalant, and when I heard Upjohn are-you-there-ing at the other end my manly spirit definitely blew a fuse. For I could tell by his voice that he was in the testiest of moods. Not even when conferring with me at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, on the occasion when I put sherbet in the ink, had I sensed in him a more marked stirred-up-ness. “Hullo? Hullo? Hullo? Are you there? Will you kindly answer me? This is Mr Upjohn speaking.”

2. (UK, dated, New Zealand) Alternative form of hello (expressing puzzlement or discovery)
   • 1897, Richard Marsh, The Beetle:

     Suddenly Sydney gave an exclamation. ‘Hullo! — The front door’s closed!’

   • 1939, Country Life, volume 85, page 290:

     "Hullo, there's a monkey's wedding," said my wife's niece, a girl of about twenty, born in South Africa […] She was looking out on the lawn, and it was one of those lovely April mornings with sunshine and rain alternating […]

hullo (plural hullos or hulloes)

1. (UK) Alternative form of hello

hullo (third-person singular simple present hullos, present participle hulloing, simple past and past participle hulloed)

1. (UK) Alternative form of hello

• uhllo

From Proto-Samic *ullō, from Proto-Germanic *wullō.

hulˈlo

1. wool

• Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎^[1], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland