hue and cry

American  

noun

1. Early English Law. the pursuit of a felon or an offender with loud outcries or clamor to give an alarm.

2. any public clamor, protest, or alarm.

   a general hue and cry against the war.

---

hue and cry British  

noun

1. (formerly) the pursuit of a suspected criminal with loud cries in order to raise the alarm

2. any loud public outcry

---

hue and cry Cultural  

1. Any loud clamor or protest intended to incite others to action: “In the 1980s, there was a great hue and cry for educational reform.”

---

hue and cry Idioms  

1. 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.

---

Etymology

Origin of hue and cry

1250–1300; Middle English, translation of Anglo-French hu et cri. See hue ², cry

Example Sentences

A disagreement between a mother and daughter over the colour of a dress for a wedding generates 20m tweets Facebook Twitter Pinterest Hue and cry: the colour-changing dress.

From The Guardian • Dec. 20, 2015

Hue and cry for the fugitive, James Device, ought also to be made throughout the forest.

From The Lancashire Witches A Romance of Pendle Forest by Ainsworth, William Harrison

Hue and cry was forthwith made for Stephen, but he was not to be found.

From The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's A School Story by Reed, Talbot Baines

Hue and cry, hubbub and mystery, swept the Isle of Arcady that morning, but the most painstaking search and query proved fruitless.

From Bransford of Rainbow Range Originally Published under the title of Bransford in Arcadia, or, The Little Eohippus by Rhodes, Eugene Manlove

Hue and cry was raised,40 and a personal description of the leaders for their better identification was scattered throughout the country.

From London and the Kingdom - Volume II by Sharpe, Reginald R. (Reginald Robinson)

Related Words

• brouhaha
• outcry
• uproar