Hello is what you say when you meet somebody, or when you pick up the phone. A wave across the car park, a hand held out to shake, a voice into a receiver: hello?
It works with a name attached — hello, Maria — and it stands alone at the top of an email, where it is warmer than dear and safer than hi. Hi and hey are the casual versions and good morning is the formal one. Said with a rise at the end, hello? asks whether anybody is there, down a phone line or in an empty house, and in speech it can mean wake up, you are not listening. It is a noun too: she gave me a quick hello and kept walking. The plural is hellos.
1phrasehelloA greeting used when you meet somebody.
“Hello, I don't think we have met.”
synonyms: hi, hey
2phraseanswerWhat you say when you answer or begin a phone call.
“Hello, is that the surgery?”
3phraserisingSaid with a rising voice to ask whether anybody is there.
“Hello? Is anybody home?”
4noungreetingA greeting.
“He walked past without so much as a hello.”
Also accepted in games: hi, hey
Hello only reaches print in 1826, growing out of holla and hollo, which go back to 1588. Thomas Edison gets the credit for coining it for the telephone, and the dates say otherwise — it was on the page decades before the telephone existed. Further back sits a variant of the Old English call eala, something like hela, used the way hey is used now, with a push from halon, to call or fetch, the shout you gave to bring a ferryman across the water.
Old English
ēalā
English, today
hello
Built from
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. Possibly influenced by halo, of halōn (“to call, fetch”), used in hailing a ferryman, akin to Old High German hala, hola, imperative forms of halōn, holōn (“to fetch”). For more information, see hallo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA