Hello

How to spell hello

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hello

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hello mean?

1. interjectionAn expression used to greet someone or to begin a telephone conversation.

Hello in a sentence

• She answered the phone with a cheerful hello.

• A friendly hello from the new neighbours made the morning pleasant.

Where does hello come from?

Language of origin: Other

Hello is a surprisingly young word, becoming common only in the nineteenth century. It grew out of older attention-getting shouts such as 'hollo', 'holla', and 'hallo', which were used to hail a ferryman, call to hounds, or simply demand someone's notice; these in turn echo Old French 'hola', a command roughly meaning 'stop there' or 'whoa, there'. The modern spelling and its use as a standard greeting were cemented by the arrival of the telephone, since people needed an agreed word to open a call. Thomas Edison championed 'hello' as that opening word, and once telephone operators were even nicknamed 'hello girls'. Because the word was assembled from interjections rather than inherited from a single root, its spelling settled by convention, with the doubled 'l' and the final 'o' that learners sometimes second-guess.

How the word is built

• hello (a greeting; an exclamatory form related to earlier 'hollo' used to attract attention)