At 9:36:27 AM on Saturday, January 3, 2004, Harald
Hammarstrom wrote:
> Hi!
> I hear an urban legend that 'hooray', according to English
> etym. dictionaries from German 'hurra',
That's the etymology given by Merriam-Webster (on-line), but
the American Heritage Dictionary makes <hooray> a variant of
<hurrah>, itself a variant of <huzzah>. This last is said
to be perhaps a variant of ME <hisse> 'heave!', which is
possibly from MDu <hissen> 'to haul'.
> is from an Aramaic or Hebrew exclamation meaning
> 'kill/slughter' or the like and refers to some event
> involving John the Baptist. I don't have access to a
> German (or Swedish hononym which presumably has the same
> source) that contains the entry and I can't verify is in
> an Aramaic or Hebrew dictionary. Anyone know the status?
> thanks, Harald
SAOB on-line says:
ETYMOLOGI: [jfr d. hurra, holl. hoera, eng. o. t. hurruh;
trol. etymologiskt samhörigt med HURRA, v.1 Ordet synes
hava inkommit i sv. från engelskt sjömansspråk ss. jubel-
o. hyllningsrop; dess senare militära anv. torde bero på
invärkan (under Napoleonskrigen) av det ryska stridsropet
urá, som sannol. är av turkotatariskt urspr.
For the verb mentioned above:
ETYMOLOGI: [jfr sv. dial. hurra, snurra, vina, d. hurre,
snurra, surra, nor. hurra, virvla, dundra, shetl. hurr,
snurra, virvla, surra, spinna (om katt), eng. (dial.)
hurr, surra, brumma, morra (om hund), mht. o. t. hurren,
vara i hastig rörelse; urspr. ljudhärmande;
Brian