English

Etymology 1

Variant of hollo, which was a variant of holla from Middle French hola (equivalent to ho ahoy + la there). See also: holler.

Etymology 2

From the Hungarian "hallom", which means "I do hear you". When the first long-distance telephone connection was tested by Tivadar Puskás and Edison on April 2, 1878, Puskás repeatedly and vehemently used the word "hallom" to respond. It became an "insider phrase" for telephone exchange testers, and later used in the USA to respond to telephone calls, from where it started to spread (and ultimately it have reached Hungary again, where it is used as well).

Interjection

1. A variant of hello
2. A cry of surprise.
   • 1890, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Sign of the Four,

     It sounds like a sum in the rule of three. The answer should give us the — But hallo! here are the accredited representatives of the law.

Noun

1. The cry "hallo!"
2. A shout of exultation.

Verb

1. To shout, or to call with a loud voice.
2. To chase while shouting "hallo!"
3. To cry "hallo" (to someone).
4. To shout (something).

See also

• :Category:Greetings

Dutch

Pronunciation

Interjection

hallo

1. hello (a general greeting used when meeting somebody)

Estonian

Interjection

hallo

1. hello (a greeting usually used to answer the telephone)

German

Pronunciation

• /ˈhaloː/ or /haˈloː/

Interjection

hallo

1. hello (a general greeting used when meeting somebody)

Interlingua

Interjection

hallo

1. hello (a greeting usually used to answer the telephone or when meeting somebody)

Norwegian

Interjection

1. hello (greeting)

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.

First use

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), so its first use must have predated the telephone:

Earlier uses can be found back to 1849 and 1846:

It was listed in dictionaries by 1883.

The word was extensively used in literature by the 1860s. Two early uses of hello can be found as far back as 1826.

Examples: 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...'Report on the trade in foreign corn, and on the agriculture of the north of Europe. by William Jacob, 1826. page 213

Etymology

There are many different theories to the origins of the word. It might be a contraction of archaic English "whole be thou". 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).

Telephone

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. Alexander Graham Bell initially used Ahoy-hoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting. However, in 1877, Edison wrote to T.B.A. David, the president of the Central District and Printing Telegraph Company of Pittsburg:

By 1889, central telephone exchange operators were known as 'hello-girls' due to the association between the greeting and the telephone. The definition of hollo is to shout or an exclamation originally shouted in a hunt when the quarry was spotted: Hallo is also used by many famous authors like Enid Blyton. Example:"Hallo!", chorused the 600 children.

The Old English verb, hǽlan (1. wv/t1b 1 to heal, cure, save; greet, salute; gehǽl! Hosanna!), may be the ultimate origin of the word. http://home.comcast.net/~modean52/oeme_dictionaries.htm Hǽlan is likely a cognate of German Heil and other similar words of Germanic origin.

"Hello, World" Computer Program

Students learning a new computer programming language will often begin by writing a "Hello, world!" program, which outputs that greeting to a display screen or printer. The widespread use of this tradition arose from an introductory chapter of the book The C Programming Language by Kernighan & Ritchie, which reused the following example taken from earlier memos by Brian Kernighan at Bell Labs:

main()

Trivia

In 1997, Leonso Canales Jr. from Kingsville, Texas convinced Kleberg County commissioners to designate "heaven-o" as the county's official greeting, on the grounds that the greeting "hello" contains the word "hell", and that the proposed alternative sounds more "positive". "Hello", however, is not etymologically related to "hell".

External links

• Hello in more than 800 languages

References

• OED online entry for hollo (Subscription)
• Merriam-Webster Dictionary: hollo, hullo