Word.ws English Dictionary

xoxo

[ɛksəʊɛksəʊ]

xoxo is the abbreviation of hugs and kisses.

Meaning of hugs and kisses

Phrase

hugs and kisses

  1. (idiomatic) An informal way to end a letter, email etc. to a loved one.

Noun capitalized: XOXO

XOXO

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of xoxo (an abbreviation for hugs and kisses, usually placed at the end of a letter.)

Synonyms of xoxo

Forms of xoxo

alternative formxo
alternative formXO
alternative formxoxoxo
alternative formXOXO

Origin of xoxo

From use of X/x to mean “kiss” and O/o to mean “hug”. Use of “X” to indicate a kiss attested since 1763, preceded by medieval use of an “X”, which was then kissed by illiterates to indicate a signature. Use of “O” is more recent, and presumably created by analogy (e.g., X/O in tic-tac-toe). Speculative theories on precise origins abound, including folk etymologies.

Questions about xoxo

What is xoxo the abbreviation of?
Xoxo is the abbreviation of hugs and kisses.
What part of speech is xoxo?
Xoxo is a noun.
How do you pronounce xoxo?
Xoxo is pronounced [ɛksəʊɛksəʊ].

Words near xoxo in the dictionary

  1. xorphanol
  2. xors
  3. XOs
  4. Xosa
  5. Xosas
  6. xoxo
  7. xoxoxo
  8. XP
  9. XP-53
  10. XP-53s
  11. XP-90

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: xoxo (page history and authors); XOXO (page history and authors); hugs and kisses (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.

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