Also whooh. [Variant of HOO int.] An exclamation of surprise, grief, or other emotion; occas. an imitation of an owl’s hoot (cf. TU-WHOO). Also repeated and in WHOO-WHOOP.
1608. Middleton, Mad World, III. ii. E 2. Wife. Will you but heare a word from mee? Curtiz. Whooh.
1683. Villiers (Dk. Buckhm.), Rehearsal, V. i. (ed. 4), 49. Smi. I had rather be bound to Fight your Battel, I assure you, Sir. Bayes. Whoo! there’s it now: fight a Battel? there’s the common error.
1770. J. Collier (Tim Bobbin), Wks. (1862), 365. On hearing the news of his landlord’s death, [Abraham] only cried out, Whoo-who, whoo-who, whoo—.
1787. Grose, Prov. Gloss., Whoo, whoo, an interjection, marking great surprize.
1796. Mme. D’Arblay, Camilla, III. v. ‘Pray, can he really read?’ ‘Whoo!’ says I, ‘why he does nothing else.’
1908. Weyman, Wild Geese, xviii. 282. He heard … the ‘Whoo! hoo! hoo!’ of owls beginning to mouse beside the lake.
1915. Mrs. Stratton-Porter, M. O’Halloran, xv. 368. Whoohoo it’s so good, Mickey!
So Whoo sb., an utterance of this exclamation, or a similar sound, a hoot.
1845. C. Wilkes, Narr. U.S. Expl. Exped., II. 199. At the end of each dance they finished with a loud whoo, or screech.
1863. Reade, Hard Cash, I. vii. 217. Down came the gale with a whoo.
