brouhaha
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbɹuː.hɑː.hɑː/
Forms: form: brouhahas
Etymology: Borrowed from French brouhaha, but disputed as to where from before that. Possibly from Hebrew בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא (barúkh habá, “welcome”, literally “blessed is he who comes”).
Senses: examples: text: It caused quite a brouhaha when the school suspended one of its top students for refusing to adhere to the dress code.
text: For as they were maneuvering the cylinder onto a dolly, it split and dumped one ton of chlorine trifluoride onto the floor. It chewed its way through twelve inches of concrete and dug a three-foot hole in the gravel underneath, filled the place with fumes which corroded everything in sight, and, in general, made one hell of a mess. Civil Defense turned out, and started to evacuate the neighborhood, and to put it mildly, there was quite a brouhaha before things quieted down. Miraculously, nobody was killed, but there was one casualty — the man who had been steadying the cylinder when it split. He was found some five hundred feet away, where he had reached Mach 2 and was still picking up speed when he was stopped by a heart attack.
ref: 1972, John Drury Clark, “Halogens and Politics and Deep Space”, in Ignition!: An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants, New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 74:
text: Talk, it's only talk / Babble, burble, banter / Bicker, bicker, bicker / Brouhaha, balderdash, ballyhoo / It's only talk / Back talk
ref: 1981, “Elephant Talk”, in Discipline, performed by King Crimson:
text: In the brouhaha over the reappointment of Superior Court Judge Sylvia Pressler, we organized massive support - telegramming, telephoning and writing to encourage the State Senate to exercise its advise and consent function responsibly.
ref: 1984 August 5, “Women Lawyers Unit Describes Its Role”, in The New York Times:
text: What's all the fanfare, what's the to do / We're known to bring the hullabaloo / On stage or at the spa / Guaranteed we bring the brouhaha / ‘Cause it's a brouhaha
ref: 1999, “The Brouhaha”, in Hello Nasty, performed by Beastie Boys:
text: Ms. Rousseau, a senior member of the Europe Écologie-Les Verts party, said in an interview that she was surprised by the sizzling brouhaha.
ref: 2022 September 5, Roger Cohen, “Of Barbecues and Men: A Summer Storm Brews Over Virility in France”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
text: El Salvador, caught in legal brouhaha over the case of erroneously deported Kilmar Ábrego García, has received a reported $6 million from the U.S. to imprison deportees.
ref: 2025 April 21, Whitney Eulich, Andrea Salcedo, “Panama accepted asylum-seekers the US didn’t want. Then its troubles began.”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
synonyms: word: commotion
word: hubbub
word: kerfuffle
word: ado
word: argy-bargy
word: bangarang
word: bobbery
word: brouhaha
word: bunfight
word: bustle
word: bust-up
word: chaos
word: clamour
word: clatter
word: commotion
word: disruption
word: disturbance
word: flap
word: foofaraw
word: fracas
word: furor
word: fuss
word: hobbleshaw
word: hoo-ha
word: hoo-hah
word: hubbub
word: hullabaloo
word: hurly-burly
word: kerfuffle
word: mayhem
word: merry hell
word: outcry
word: palaver
word: pandemonium
word: pother
word: quarrel
word: riot
word: rowdydow
word: ruckus
word: rumpus
word: shemozzle
word: shindy
word: splatterdash
word: stir
word: stooshie
word: three-ring circus
word: to-do
word: tomfoolery
word: trouble
word: tumult
word: turmoil
word: unrest
word: uproar
word: upstir
glosses: A stir; a fuss or uproar.