The call was recorded in England in the beginning of the 19th century in connection with making a
toast. Eighteenth century dictionaries list "Hip" as an attention-getting interjection, and in an example from 1790 it is repeated. "Hip-hip" was added as a preparatory call before making a toast or cheer in the early 19th century, probably after 1806. By 1813, it had reached its modern form, hip-hip-hurrah. It has been suggested that the word "hip" stems from a
medieval Latin acronym, "
Hierosolyma
Est
Perdita", meaning "Jerusalem is lost", a term that gained notoriety in the German
Hep hep riots of August to October 1819. Cornell's
Michael Fontaine disputes this etymology, tracing it to a single letter in an English newspaper published August 28, 1819, some weeks after the riots. He concludes that the "acrostic interpretation ... has no basis in fact."
Ritchie Robertson also disputes the "folk etymology" of the acronym interpretation, citing
Jacob Katz. One theory about the origin of "hurrah" is that the Europeans picked up the Mongol exclamation "hooray" as an enthusiastic cry of bravado and mutual encouragement. See
Jack Weatherford's book
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World. ==See also==