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Used to greet someone, answer the telephone, or express surprise.
n., pl. -los.A calling or greeting of “hello.”
intr.v., -loed, -lo·ing, -loes.To call “hello.”
[Alteration of hallo, alteration of obsolete holla, stop!, perhaps from Old French hola : ho, ho! + la, there (from Latin illāc, that way).]
Alexander Graham Bell's much-talked-about invention gave us not only the new word telephone (1876) but also the greeting hello. To be sure, something like hello had been with us for a long time as a shout that the English had learned from the French in the Middle Ages. Ho là! they would say. It meant both "stop" and "pay attention," or in the words of an early translator, "hoe there, enough, soft soft, no more of that; also, heare you me, or come hither." In various English shouts and reshouts over the centuries, this became holla (1523), hollo, hollow (1542), and hillo, hilloa (1602). For long-distance shouts the ending was lengthened to -oo, leading to halloo (1568) and hulloo (1707). By the nineteenth century the variants included hallo, halloa (1840) and hullo, hulloa (1857).
It is not surprising that a call to stop and pay attention should become associated with the first telephones. But with all the possible ways of saying it, why should telephones call for a different pronunciation, that of the present-day hello? Because it is rude to shout, and hello discourages shouting. The short e keeps the mouth more closed than o or a, and -lo makes a quieter ending than. -loo. Telephones badly needed this civilizing because the first ones required people to shout and the first telephone exchanges were manned by boys who enthusiastically shouted right back. "Nothing could be done with them. They were immune to all schemes of discipline," noted one author. So within a few years, in the mid 1880s, "In place of the noisy and obstreperous boy came the docile, soft-voiced girl"--often called a hello girl in recognition of her civilized calling word. In 1889, Mark Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court included this tribute: "The humblest hello-girl along ten thousand miles of wire could teach gentleness, patience, modesty, manners, to the highest duchess in Arthur's land."
The telephone hello soon became a face-to-face greeting too. It could take the place of How are you? and How do you do?, although it did not replace the informal hi and howdy derived from those expressions. At the end of the twentieth century, there was also a hello? that expressed surprise and a Hello-o-o with an exaggerated up and down of the voice that implied, Wake up! What do you think you're doing?
The teacher said, "Hello," as the children entered the classroom.
Hello is a salutation or greeting in the English language and is synonymous with other greetings such as Hi or Hey. Hello was recorded in dictionaries in 1883. [1]
Many stories date the first use of hello (with that spelling) to around the time of the invention of the telephone in 1876. It was, however, used in print in Roughing It by Mark Twain in 1872 (written between 1870 and 1871), [2] so its first use must have predated the telephone:
"A miner came out and said: 'Hello!"
Earlier uses can be found back to 1849 [3] and 1846[4]:
"We meet the boys here, and it is "Hello, George," or "Hello, Jim." We slap the judge of the supreme court on the back with a "Hello, Joe, how are you?"[5]
It was listed in dictionaries by 1883. [1]
The word was extensively used in literature by the 1860s. [6] Two early uses of hello can be found as far back as 1826. [7]
"On this occasion she switched it on to a patient who was awake and who merely said 'Hello Sister, what's the matter with you...'"
"Then hello boys! Hello boys! Shout and huzz...."
There are many different theories to the origins of the word. It might be a contraction of archaic English "whole be thou". [8] Another source has been suggested to be the phrase "Hail, Thou", as used in some translations of the Bible (see Luke 1:28 and Matthew 27:14 for examples). [citation needed]
The word hello has also been credited to Thomas Edison, specifically as a way to greet someone when answering the telephone; according to one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard Hullo. [9] Alexander Graham Bell initially used Ahoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting. [10] However, in 1877, Edison wrote to T.B.A. David, the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburg:
"Friend David, I do not think we shall need a call bell as Hello! can be heard 10 to 20 feet away. What you think? Edison - P.S. first cost of sender & receiver to manufacture is only $7.00."
By 1889, central telephone exchange operators were known as 'hello-girls' due to the association between the greeting and the telephone.[1]
Unusually, the term "hello" is almost exclusively used when answering a phone call as of 2007. The similar terms "hi" or "hey" are seldom used, unless the recipient has Caller ID and knows it is their close friend calling.
Hello may also be derived from Hullo. Hullo was in use before hello and was used as a greeting and
also an expression of surprise. Charles Dickens uses it in Chapter 8 of
"Upon this, the boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said 'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?'"
It was in use in both senses by the time Tom Brown's Schooldays was published in 1857 (although the book was set in the 1830s so it may have been in use by then):
Although much less common than it used to be, the word hullo is still in use, mainly in British English.
Hello is alternatively thought to come from the word hallo (1840) via hollo (also holla, holloa, halloo, halloa). [11] The definition of hollo is to shout or an exclamation originally shouted in a hunt when the quarry was spotted: [11]
"If I fly, Marcius,/Halloo me like a hare." - Coriolanus (I.viii.7), William Shakespeare
Webster's dictionary from 1913 traces the etymology of holloa to the Old English halow and suggests: "Perhaps from ah + lo; compare Anglo Saxon ealā."
According to the American Heritage Dictionary, hallo is a modification of the obsolete holla (stop!), perhaps from Old French hola (ho, ho! + la, there, from Latin illac, that way). [12]
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Dansk (Danish)
int. - davs, hej, hallo
n. - hallo
v. intr. - sige/råbe hallo
Nederlands (Dutch)
hallo, hallo zeggen, nonchalante groet
Français (French)
int. - bonjour, allô, bonjour, tiens (de surprise)
n. - bonjour
v. intr. - dire bonjour
Deutsch (German)
int. - hallo
n. - Hallo
v. - Hallo rufen
Ελληνική (Greek)
int. - γεια!, αλό!, παρακαλώ!, ε!, ψιτ!
Italiano (Italian)
pronto, ciao
Português (Portuguese)
int. - Alô!
Español (Spanish)
int. - hola
n. - saludo
v. intr. - saludar, gritar para ver si hay alguien allí
Svenska (Swedish)
int. - hallå!, vad nu då!, hej!, hör du du!
中文（简体） (Chinese (Simplified))
喂, 你好, 嘿, 啊, 表示问候, 哈罗, 喊"喂"
中文（繁體） (Chinese (Traditional))
int. - 喂, 你好, 嘿, 啊
n. - 表示問候, 喂, 哈囉
v. intr. - 喊"喂", 哈囉
한국어 (Korean)
int. - 이봐, 여보세요, 안녕하시오
n. - hello라고 부르는 소리
v. intr. - ~하고 부르다
日本語 (Japanese)
int. - やあ, おーい, もしもし, おや
n. - やあというあいさつ
v. - やあと言う
العربيه (Arabic)
(نداء) هالو هتاف للترحيب يعني مرحبا أو لفت النظر أو التعجب أو للاجابه على التلفون
עברית (Hebrew)
int. - הלו!
n. - קריאה להסבת תשומת-לב או כדי לברך לשלום
v. intr. - קרא 'הלו!'
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Some good "hello" pages on the web:
 American Sign Language commtechlab.msu.edu |
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Copyrights:
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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Origin. America in So Many Words, by David K.Barnhart and Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1997 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; free trial. Read more |
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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Hello". Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
