yo-ho-ho
intjEtymology
The term was popularized by a (fictional) pirate shanty in the novel Treasure Island (1883) by Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) – see the quotation – but appears in earlier songs of sailors. The term is possibly a variant of yo-he-ho, apparently a short form of yo-heave-ho (“a repetitive call made to synchronize workers performing some collective physical labour, such as hauling on a rope”).
Definitions
A cry associated with pirates and seafaring, originally a repetitive chant intended to…
A cry associated with pirates and seafaring, originally a repetitive chant intended to synchronize workers performing some collective physical labour, such as hauling on a rope.
- How happy, my comrades, how happy are we, / While drawing fish from the dark rolling sea, / While drawing fish from the dark rolling sea. / Yo ho, yo ho, yo ho, ho, ho!
- We're rolling along, rolling along, / As over the sea we go, / As over the sea we go, / And our anchor we heave, while we're singing our song. / Sing yo! ho! cheery men, ho! / Sing yo! cheery men, ho!
The neighborhood
Vish — recursive loop
No curated loop yet for yo-ho-ho. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA