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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hubbub.

A confused sound of a crowd of people shouting or speaking simultaneously; an uproar.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈhʌbʌb/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. A confused sound of a crowd of people shouting or speaking simultaneously; an uproar.

    countable

  2. Noisy confusion; commotion, uproar; (countable) an instance of this; an ado, a commotion.

    broadly · uncountable

  3. A sound of people making a battle cry or war cry.

    countable · obsolete
Where this word comes from

In early use, the noun is often mentioned as a cry by Irish people, and so is possibly borrowed from Irish; compare Irish ababú, abú (“used as a battle cry”), and Scottish Gaelic ub, ub, ubub (“used to express contempt, etc.”), ubh ubh (“used to express disgust”). The verb is derived from the noun.

verb/ˈhʌbʌb/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. To make a confused sound of a crowd of people shouting or speaking simultaneously; to cause a racket or tumult.

    intransitive · rare
Where this word comes from

In early use, the noun is often mentioned as a cry by Irish people, and so is possibly borrowed from Irish; compare Irish ababú, abú (“used as a battle cry”), and Scottish Gaelic ub, ub, ubub (“used to express contempt, etc.”), ubh ubh (“used to express disgust”). The verb is derived from the noun.

noun/ˈhʌbʌb/General-American, Received-Pronunciation

  1. Synonym of bowl game (“a Native American game of chance involving the throwing of colored nuts from a bowl, comparable to dice”).

    US · historical · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Used by New England colonists (17th–18th century) to imitate the sounds hub, hub, hub cried by the players: see the 1634 quotation.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.