tohu-bohu

From Biblical Hebrew תוהו ובוהו, from תֹהוּ (tóhu, “nothingness, void”) + בֹּהוּ (bóhu, “emptiness, desolation”).

tohu-bohu (uncountable)

1. Chaos, disorder, confusion.
   • 1875, William Gladstone, Gleanings of Past Years, section VI:

     Yet a judge may […] be required to dive, at a moment's notice, into the tohu-bohu of inquiries, which have never yet emerged from the stage of chaos.

   • 1940, W. H. Auden, In Sickness and in Health:

     […] / The decorative manias we obey / Die in grimaces round us every day, / Yet through their tohu-bohu comes a voice / Which utters an absurd command — Rejoice.

• tohubohu

Borrowed from Biblical Hebrew תוהו ובוהו (tóhu va-bóhu, “without form and void”), from תֹהוּ (tóhu, “nothingness, void”) + בֹּהוּ (bóhu, “emptiness, desolation”), by allusion to Genesis 1:2.

• IPA^(key): /tɔ.y.bɔ.y/

• Audio

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• Rhymes: -y
• Homophone: tohu-bohus

tohu-bohu m (plural tohu-bohus)

1. commotion
2. chaos

• 1871, Arthur Rimbaud, “Le Bateau Ivre”, in Poésies:

  Dans les clapotements furieux des marées, ¶ Moi, l’autre hiver, plus sourd que les cerveaux d’enfants, ¶ Je courus ! Et les Péninsules démarrées ¶ N’ont pas subi tohu-bohus plus triomphants.

  (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• “tohu-bohu”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.