int. Also as two words, or with hyphen; also 8 yoa hoa, yoe-hoe, 9 yeo-ho, -hoy, yo(e) ho. [See YO int., HO int.1 and 3.] An exclamation used to call attention: orig. in nautical use, hence generally; also sometimes used like YO-HEAVE-HO, q.v.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1780), II. Hola-ho, a cry which answers to yoe-hoe. Ibid., s.v. O! d’en haut, Yoa-hoe, aloft there!
1803. Dibdin, Songs, III. 47. He can pull away, Cast off, belay, Aloft, alow, Avast, yo ho!
1825. L. Hunt, Redi’s Bacchus in Tuscany, 153. The yeo-hoys on board a ship.
1833. M. Scott, Tom Cringle, ii. Yo ho, my young un! whence and whither bound, my hearty?
1844. Dickens, Mart. Chuz., xxxvi. Yoho, past hedges…. Yoho, past donkey-chaises…. Yoho, down the pebbly dip…. Yoho! Yoho!
1849. Lever, Con Cregan, xiii. The very voices that ye-hoed … made delicious music to my ear. Ibid., xviii. The pleasant ye-ho! of the sailors.
a. 1880. Weatherly, Song, Nancy Lee. The sailor’s wife the sailor’s star shall be, Yeo ho! we go across the sea.
1883. Stevenson, Treas. Isl., i. Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest—Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
attrib. 1887. A. W. Benn, in Academy, 7 May, 317/3. The despised bow-wow theory [Bow-wow 2 b] would, after all, have something in it. On the analogy of that famous nickname, one may, perhaps, venture to suggest the yo-ho theory as a convenient appellation for Noiré’s view; yo-ho being, if I remember rightly, the clamor concomitans of sailors engaged in working a capstan.
1888. Max Müller, Nat. Relig., xiv. (1889), 373. The Pooh-pooh theory, the Bow-wow theory, and the Yo-heho theory, completely fail to explain … how conceptual words arose.
Hence Yoho v., intr. to shout ‘yoho!’ (whence Yohoing vbl. sb.); Yohoic a., nonce-wd. after echoic (cf. quot. 1887 above).
1772. Gentl. Mag., April, 191/4. The passengers bawling, the sailors yo-ho-ing.
1840. R. H. Dana, Bef. Mast, xv. After two or three hours of constant labour at the windlass, heaving and ‘Yo-ho!’-ing with all our might, we brought up an anchor.
1843. Thackeray, Irish Sk.-bk., vii. Seamen are singing and yeehoing on board.
1888. Henley, Bk. Verses, 128. Hark! the echoes are yeo-hoing Valiantly from vale and hill!
1888. Max Müller, Nat. Relig., viii. (1889), 211. The Yo-heoic theory [of language].
1901. Besant, Lady of Lynn, viii. The bargemen brought their … craft alongside with many loud-sounding oaths and the yohoing without which they can do nothing.
