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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
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illustrate current usage. Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of
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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 5 Nov. 2024.
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