WORD OF THE DAY

BROUHAHA

brou·ha·ha

noun ˈbrü-ˌhä-ˌhä, ˌbrü-ˌhä-ˈhä, brü-ˈhä-ˌhä

Definition of brouhaha,

LOUD, OVEREXCITED DISPLAY

:HUBBUB, UPROAR

Examples of BROUHAHA

1.   A brouhaha erupted over her statements about the president.

2.   There's been a lot of brouhaha about her statements.

Origin of BROUHAHA

A brouhaha (from French brouhaha, possibly from a corruption of Hebrew בָּרוּךְ הַבָּא (barúkh habá, “welcome”, literally “blessed is he who comes,” a phrase uttered by devils or demons in early modern French religious dramas) is a state of social agitation when a minor incident gets out of control, sometimes referred to as an uproar or hubbub.^[1]

Usage

Typically, a brouhaha is marked by controversyand fuss which can seem, afterwards, to have been pointless or irrational.

Example incidents

In one such instance, in New York City, a dispute between a clinic entitled Upper Breast Side (which gives advice to young mothers about breastfeeding and bras) and a condo association erupted into a legal battles and was described in the Boston Globeas a brouhaha.^[2]The Washington Postdescribed an incident as a brouhaha in which a passenger, on board a jetliner, reclined the seat to the point where it bothered a second passenger, resulting in a fistfight, intervention by flight attendants, and the plane returning to the airport escorted by fighter jets.^[3]In another instance, politics surrounding the choice of bus lanes in Los Angeleserupted in ineffective squabbling which ultimately did not help efforts to improve public transit in the metropolis.^[4]