Words · Very common
hello
/həˈloʊ/ · 5 letters · 4 distinct letters
- noun
an expression of greeting
every morning they exchanged polite hellos
Word history
First attested in 1826. From holla, hollo (attested 1588). This variant of hallo is often credited to Thomas Edison as a coinage for telephone use, but its appearance in print predates the invention of the telephone by several decades. Ultimately from a variant of Old English ēalā, such as hēlā, which was used colloquially at the time similarly to how hey and (in some dialects) hi are used nowadays. Thus, equivalent to a compound of hey and lo. Used when drawing attention to yourself.
From Wiktionary, under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0
Why this word counts
- Where it comes from
- Listed in the English Speller Database at size 35: the core list of everyday words.
- How common it is
- Used about 52 times in every million words.
- In the spelling bee
- Daily answer A standard word with a definition we can show, so it can be a daily answer.