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Synonyms
- ado
- alarums and excursions
- ballyhoo
- blather
- bluster
- bobbery
- bother
- bustle
- clatter
- clutter [chiefly dialect]
- coil
- commotion
- corroboree [Australian]
- disturbance
- do [chiefly dialect]
- foofaraw
- fun
- furor
- furore
- fuss
- helter-skelter
- hoo-ha
- hoo-hah
- hoopla
- hubble-bubble
- hubbub
- hullabaloo
- hurly
- hurricane
- hurry
- hurry-scurry
- hurry-skurry
- kerfuffle [chiefly British]
- moil
- pandemonium
- pother
- row
- ruckus
- ruction
- rumpus
- shindy
- splore [Scottish]
- squall
- stew
- stir
- storm
- to-do
- tumult
- turmoil
- uproar
- welter
- whirl
- williwaw
- zoo
Examples of hurly-burly in a Sentence
lost sight of his children in all the hurly-burly of the fair
Recent Examples on the Web
Trump Has Promised to Do in a Second Term
Compounding all of this household hurly-burly is the fact that Suada has stage 4 pancreatic cancer.
—
David Fear, Rolling Stone, 3 Apr. 2024
The image’s low contrast and lack of sharpness suggest that it was snapped from the hurly-burly of the piazza.
—
Paul Elie, The New Yorker, 14 Nov. 2023
By then, his approach to artists had softened, perhaps from age, or from the experience of being in the creative hurly-burly himself.
—
Helen Shaw, The New Yorker, 1 Nov. 2023
He is considered a must-follow in the hurly-burly community known as Crypto Twitter for his informed takes on legal and regulatory news.
—
Jeff John Roberts, Fortune Crypto, 3 Oct. 2023
For generations, ever since it was first published in 1936, Consumer Reports has been a go-to source for shoppers seeking an impartial guide to the hurly-burly of the marketplace.
—
Emily Langer, Washington Post, 10 Aug. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hurly-burly.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Etymology
probably alteration & reduplication of hurling, gerund of hurl
First Known Use
1539, in the meaning defined above
Articles Related to hurly-burly
Dictionary Entries Near hurly-burly
Cite this Entry
“Hurly-burly.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hurly-burly. Accessed 16 Jun. 2024.
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