ho

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /hoʊ/ UK /həʊ/ See IPA manual

Homophones

hoe /hoʊ/

Minimal pairs

Sounds like ha /ɑ/ vs /oʊ/

Meanings

1

intj
an exclamation used to attract attention or express surprise

Ho there, traveller, what news from the south?

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 intj · an exclamation used to... hey hark ahoy

Etymology

A natural exclamation of attention or surprise, attested in Middle English and paralleled across many languages; onomatopoeic and imitative in origin.

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# ho

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** intj
**IPA (US):** /hoʊ/
**IPA (UK):** /həʊ/

## Meanings
1. an exclamation used to attract attention or express surprise

## Examples
- Ho there, traveller, what news from the south?

## Synonyms
- hey
- hark
- ahoy

## Etymology
A natural exclamation of attention or surprise, attested in Middle English and paralleled across many languages; onomatopoeic and imitative in origin.

## AI Etymology
ho is a natural exclamation of attention or surprise, attested in Middle English and paralleled across many languages; onomatopoeic and imitative in origin. The history explains the modern form through the named earlier word or formation, without requiring a separate speculative ancestry. The etymology remains cautious where the history is cautious: comparisons, echoic formation, or disputed derivation do not make the ancestry more definite than the forms actually named. In present English, the interjection sense is "an exclamation used to attract attention or express surprise", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. Its semantic neighborhood includes hey, hark, and ahoy, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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ho

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