A hula-hoop is a toy — a plastic, circular tube you rotate around your body by circling your hips. Some experts can get several hula-hoops spinning at the same time. Twirling a hula-hoop around your waist is fun, and it's also good exercise. Hoops have been used as playthings for centuries, but the hula-hoop was invented in 1958. The toy made from plastic tubing was based on traditional hoops made of rattan or bamboo, and it was wildly popular. At one point, the manufacturer produced 50,000 hula-hoops a day. The word hula was used because the hip movements were seen as similar to the Hawaiian hula dance.
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Joan Anderson, who coined the name for the hula hoop and played an unsung role in its rise, has died age 101.
From BBC • Jul. 29, 2025
“Our top five runners, we could’ve thrown a hula hoop around them,” he said.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 4, 2023
Dressed in green and playing with a hula hoop, she said: "The war came suddenly and we are afraid of it".
From Reuters • Oct. 10, 2023
She’d stand on the side of the road so traffic could see her and hula hoop her little heart out.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 19, 2023
Mom slams the cabinet door in exasperation, causing a large brown ring to appear, which reminds me of Beth’s old hula hoop.
From "A Mango-Shaped Space" by Wendy Mass
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.
