ballyhoo

• IPA^(key): /bæliˈhuː/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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Unknown.

ballyhoo (plural ballyhoos)

1. Sensational or clamorous advertising or publicity.
2. Noisy shouting or uproar.
   • 1981, “Elephant Talk”, in Discipline, performed by King Crimson:

     Talk, it's only talk / Babble, burble, banter / Bicker, bicker, bicker / Brouhaha, balderdash, ballyhoo / It's only talk / Back talk

ballyhoo (third-person singular simple present ballyhoos, present participle ballyhooing, simple past and past participle ballyhooed)

1. To sensationalise or make grand claims.
   • 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Fireside Chat (7 May):

     Industry has picked up, railroads are carrying more freight, farm prices are better, but I am not going to indulge in issuing proclamations of over-enthusiastic assurance. We cannot ballyhoo ourselves back to prosperity.

• ballyhooed (adjective)

From Spanish balajú.

ballyhoo (plural ballyhoos)

1. Certain species in family Hemiramphidae, inshore, surface-dwelling needlefish forming sizeable schools.
   1. Hemiramphus brasiliensis

Possibly from Spanish balahú (“schooner”).

ballyhoo (plural ballyhoos)

1. An unseaworthy or slovenly ship.

• Michael Quinion (2004) “Ballyhoo”, in Ballyhoo, Buckaroo, and Spuds: Ingenious Tales of Words and Their Origins, Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books in association with Penguin Books, →ISBN.