subs. (old: now colloquial).—A commotion; a bustle; and uproar.

1

  c. 1509–47.  WEVER, Lusty Juventus [DODSLEY, Old Plays, 4th ed. (1874), ii. 85].

          Hypocrisy.  What a HURLY-BURLY is here!
Smick smack, and all this gear!
  1539.  TAVERNIER, The Garden of Wysedome, E. ii. verso. Thys kynge [Gelo] on a tyme exacted money of hys comons, whome when he perceyued in a HURLY BURLY for the same, and ready to make an insurrection, he thus sodaynly appeased.

2

  1542.  UDALL, The Apophthegmes of Erasmus [1877], p. 115. The meaning of the Philosophier was, that princes for the ambition of honour, rule and dominion, being in continuall strife, and HURLEE BURLEE, are in very deede persons full of miserie and wo.

4

  1651.  MORE, Utopia (Pitt Press ed., 1884, i., 52, 5). Whereby so many nations for his sake should be broughte into a troublesome HURLEI-BURLEY.

5

  1567.  G. FENTON, Certain Tragical Discourses of Bandello, f. 104. They heard a great noyse and HURLEYBURLEY in the street of the Guard and chief officers of the Watch.

6

  1592.  NASHE, Pierce Penilesse, His Supplication to the Divell (GROSART, Works, ii., 53). Not trouble our peaceable Paradise with their priuate HURLIBURLIES about strumpets. Ibid. (1599), Lenten Stuffe (GROSART, Works, v., 293). Put them in feare where no feare is, and make a HURLIBURLIE in the realme.

7

  1606.  SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth, i. 1.

        When the HURLEY-BURLEY’S done,
When the battle’s lost and won.

8

  1619.  T. NORTH’S Diall of Princes (1557), corrected, p. 703, c. 1. Two or three dayes before you shall see such resort of persons, such HURLY BURLY, such flying this way such sending that way, some occupyed in telling the cookes how many sorts of meates they will have….

9

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v.

10

  1725.  A New Canting Dictionary, s.v.

11

  1771.  SMOLLETT, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (ed. 1890, p. 185). As for the lawyer he waited below till the HURLY-BURLY was over, and then he stole softly to his own chamber.

12

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.

13

  1811.  J. and H. SMITH, Horace in London, pp. 18–25, Ode ii., ‘HURLY-BURLY’ [Title].

14

  1886.  MAX ADELER, Out of the HURLY BURLY [Title].

15

  1893.  St. James’s Gazette, xxvii., 4076, p. 4. While all London was making holiday, Paris was engaged in a HURLY-BURLY of a very different kind.

16