Word.ws English Dictionary

hooley

Syllables: hool·eyUK/ˈhuːli//ˈhuli/

hooley noun: a noisy celebration or party; also, an evening of traditional music and dance.

Noun

hooley (plural hooleys)

  1. (Ireland) A noisy celebration or party; also, an evening of traditional music and dance.
    • At a family gathering, a wake or a Christmas hooley, other children would step forward to sing a rhyme or dance a hornpipe.2002, Joseph O’Connor, Star of the Sea, Vintage, published 2003, page 88
    • The celebratory ceilidh at the Culag Hotel in Lochinver is still talked about. 'Oh, it was a fine evening,' one discreet woman said to me. 'A right damn wild hoolie!' a well-oiled friend enthused.2010, Andrew Greig, At the Loch of the Green Corrie, London: Quercus Editions, published 2011, →ISBN, page 189
  2. (Scotland) Chiefly in the form to blow a hooley: a strong wind; a gale.
    • It’s blowing a hooley out there.
    • The wind blew so hard during the service itself that it seemed as though the whole of Oban bay was trying to get into the cathedral. Either that or it was the Holy Spirit blowing up a hooley in celebration.2004 May 28, Kelvin Holdsworth, “The Rt Rev Kevin Pearson”, in Thurible.net

Proper noun capitalized: Hooley

Hooley (countable and uncountable, plural Hooleys)

  1. A surname.
  2. A small village in Reigate and Banstead borough, Surrey, England, just outside Greater London (OS grid ref TQ2856).

hooley meaning in Tamil

hooley in Tamil

கூச்சல் குழு

Forms of hooley

Noun
pluralhooleys
alternative formhoolie
Proper noun
pluralHooleys

Origin of hooley

The etymology of sense 1 (“noisy celebration or party”) is unknown. Sense 2 (“strong wind”) is possibly from one of the following: * Borrowed from Orkney Scots hool(an) (“strong wind”) + English -ie (diminutive suffix). Hoolan is derived from Norn (unattested), from Old Norse ýlun (“howling, wailing”), from ýla (“to howl”) (ultimately onomatopoeic) + -un (suffix forming nouns). * From sense 1.

Words that rhyme with hooley

20 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hooley

What does hooley mean?
Hooley means a noisy celebration or party; also, an evening of traditional music and dance.
What is hooley in Tamil?
Hooley in Tamil is கூச்சல் குழு. See Hooley meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is hooley?
Hooley can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce hooley?
Hooley is pronounced /ˈhuːli/ (UK).
What is the plural of hooley?
The plural of hooley is hooleys.

Words near hooley in the dictionary

  1. hoolaulea
  2. hoolauleas
  3. Hoole
  4. Hoolee
  5. Hooles
  6. hooley
  7. hooley-ann
  8. hooley-anns
  9. hooleys
  10. Hooli
  11. hoolie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hooley (page history and authors); Hooley (page history and authors); hooley (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-hoolie.wav, En-au-hoolie.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hooley.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hooley. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.