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hue and cry
noun
- Early English Law. the pursuit of a felon or an offender with loud outcries or clamor to give an alarm.
- any public clamor, protest, or alarm:
a general hue and cry against the war.
hue and cry
noun
- (formerly) the pursuit of a suspected criminal with loud cries in order to raise the alarm
- any loud public outcry
hue and cry
- Any loud clamor or protest intended to incite others to action: “In the 1980s, there was a great hue and cry for educational reform.”
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Word History and Origins
Origin of hue and cry1
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Word History and Origins
Origin of hue and cry1
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Idioms and Phrases
A public clamor, as of protest or demand. For example, The reformers raised a hue and cry about political corruption . This redundant expression ( hue and cry both mean “an outcry”), dating from the 1200s, originally meant “an outcry calling for the pursuit of a criminal.” By the mid-1500s it was also being used more broadly, as in the example.Discover More
Example Sentences
The success of Smoke was immediate and great; but the hue-and-cry that assailed it was even greater.
In an hour there will be the hue-and-cry, and then they will surely search your house.
The hue-and-cry alarms the county, but it preserves all the property of the province.
The hue-and-cry was immediately raised; but the guilty person was nowhere to be seen.
To move it far might imperil Joe Hawkridge and Bonnet's two seamen should they come in haste with a hue-and-cry behind them.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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