int. (sb.). Also to-who(o, too-hoo. [Cf. prec.] Imitation of the call of an owl.
1797. Coleridge, Christabel, I. Concl. 31–2. From cliff and tower, tu—whoo! tu—whoo! Tu—whoo! tu—whoo! from wood and fell!
1853. Hickie, trans. Aristoph. (1872), II. 425. The owls, which are constantly crying ‘to-who.’
1862. Borrow, Wild Wales, liii. The owl … who cried Too-hoo-hoo.
1868. Tennyson, Last Tourn., 346. Tuwhoo! do ye see it? do ye see the star?
1899. E. J. Chapman, Drama Two Lives, Canadian Summer-night, 69. The owl’s weird cry … With its long too-hoo! too-hoo!
1906. Essex Rev., XV. 54. The White or Barn owl cries ‘Tu-which,’ and the Brown owl ‘Tu-whoo,’ or ‘Hoohoo; hoo, hoo, hoo, Hoo-hoo.’
b. sb. The owl’s cry.
1830. [see prec. b].
1889. Hilman’s Handbk. Chepstow & Wye (ed. 4), App. 125. Unless fair Philomel is silenced by the too-whoo of the prowling owl.
Hence Tu-whoo v. intr., to utter the cry tu-whoo; to hoot as an owl. Hence Tu-whooing vbl. sb. Also To-whoot v.
1843. Thackeray, Bluebeard’s Ghost, Wks. 1908, VI. 363. An owl was too-whooing from the church tower. Ibid. The toowhooing of the owl.
1893. Baring-Gould, Cheap Jack Z., xxxvii. A barn-owl … to-whooed in its terror.
1912. Blackw. Mag., March, 374/1. An owl tu-whooted to us from the trefoiled arch.
