hoot

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /hut/ UK /huːt/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a cry of an owl or a shout of derision or amusement

The crowd let out a hoot when the magician's trick failed.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a cry of an owl or a shout... cry screech shout jeercatcallwhoop howl

Opposites

cheer applaud

Word family

Forms hootingly

Derived forms hooter

Related forms hooting

Simplified etymology

Hoot is probably imitative, suggested by the sound it represents.

Etymology

Of imitative origin, mimicking the cry of an owl or a derisive shout; first recorded in Middle English as houten.

houten Middle English hoot onomatopoeic

View etymology graph ->

Topics

General Vocabulary

External links

# hoot

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /hut/
**IPA (UK):** /huːt/

## Meanings
1. a cry of an owl or a shout of derision or amusement

## Examples
- The crowd let out a hoot when the magician's trick failed.

## Synonyms
- cry
- screech
- shout
- jeer
- catcall
- whoop
- howl

## Antonyms
- cheer
- applaud

## Derived Forms
- hooter

## Related Forms
- hooting

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: houten
- Root: hoot

## Etymology
Of imitative origin, mimicking the cry of an owl or a derisive shout; first recorded in Middle English as houten.

## AI Etymology
hoot is of imitative origin, mimicking the cry of an owl or a derisive shout; first recorded in Middle English as houten. 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 noun sense is "a cry of an owl or a shout of derision or amusement", so the historical development ends in a clearly identifiable modern dictionary use. The same base also appears in related forms such as hooting, and in derivatives such as hooter. Its semantic neighborhood includes cry, screech, shout, and jeer, which helps locate the modern sense without adding a separate etymological claim. The named historical forms include Middle English houten and onomatopoeic hoot.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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