lollapalooza
noun
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Some readers may recognize lollapalooza as the name of an American music festival, now held annually in Chicago. Actually, the word lollapalooza has been around since at least the 1890s, though etymologists aren't sure where it comes from. Occasionally, it has been used as a gambling term for a made-up hand used to trick an inexperienced player-but primarily the term is used in a way very similar to humdinger and doozy. It is spelled in a number of ways. Lallapalooza, lalapalooza, and lollapaloosa are among the variants, and in the past it was sometimes lalapaloozer. Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg may have contributed to the popularity of this term with "Lala Palooza," one of his cartoon characters from the 1930s.
Synonyms
Examples of lollapalooza in a Sentence
Brian T. Allen, National Review, 26 Feb. 2022
Worries about Trump’s button finger were seeping out of Washington even before the book lollapalooza.
—Trudy Rubin, Philly.com, 5 Jan. 2018
After a lollapalooza trial, Marshall was convicted of larceny in 2009 and spent a few months in prison before his death in 2014.
—Alessandra Stanley, New York Times, 6 Oct. 2017
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'lollapalooza.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Lollapalooza.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/lollapalooza. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.
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