Oo

Part of speech: interjection, noun

Definitions

1. A Scottish term for wool, the fleece shorn from sheep ; an informal cry of surprise, delight or amusement
2. Wool, especially in Scottish dialect, as taken from a sheep ; a brief interjection voiced to show surprise or pleasure
3. The Scots name for the fleece of sheep used in spinning ; a short exclamation people make when something catches their attention

Etymology: The interjection "oo" is one of the few English words whose spelling is simply a sound written out: it represents a long-o vowel, the sort of cry that accompanies surprise or delight. The noun is far more unexpected. It comes from Hawaiian "ʻōʻō", the name of a songbird, and the word was named for the bird's call. Scientists later adopted the Hawaiian name for the genus "Moho", a group of extinct honeyeaters from the Hawaiian islands whose members were known for their distinctive song. The bird's name is onomatopoeic in origin: Hawaiian speakers gave it a label drawn from the sound it made, and English borrowed that label directly rather than translating it. The noun is therefore a loanword that carried a birdcall across languages, while the interjection developed independently as a written representation of an open, drawn-out vowel.

Synonyms: wool