Hoopla is a fairground game of throwing rings over prizes. Play hoopla, a hoopla stall, win at hoopla.
The rings are cut only just wider than the blocks the prizes stand on, which is why almost nobody wins. In American English hoopla means fuss and excitement, as in all the hoopla surrounding a launch, and that is now the commoner sense.
1nounhooplaA game of throwing rings over prizes.
“At the fair, I threw rings at the hoopla stall and won a goldfish.”
hoopla is a game.
From French houp-la, a cry of encouragement, taken into English fairground use in the nineteenth century.
French
houp-là
English, today
hoopla
Built from
Earlier houp-la, hoop la, c, probably from French houp-là, oup-là (“upsadaisy, upsy-daisy”), a cry to various animals close to humans like horses and dogs, of likely imitative of the sound origin (but see là). Compare interjections like whoop, ahoy, hoo.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Circus & Fairground