What does oh mean

A word to precede an offhand or annoyed remark. A word to precede an added or comment or afterthought. An invocation or address similar to the vocative in languages with noun declension. Exclamation for drama or emphasis often poetic.

Expression of pain. See ouch. Space filler or extra syllable, especially in popular music. Used with a term of endearment. The letter O, o more commonly spelled o.

The digit 0 especially in representations of speech. My telephone number is four-double-three-two-oh-nine. An utterance of oh ; a spoken expression of surprise, acknowledgement, etc. Veena Indian. Priya Indian. Neerja Indian.

Zira US English. Oliver British. Wendy British. Fred US English. Tessa South African. How to say oh in sign language? Popularity rank by frequency of use oh 1 Select another language:. Please enter your email address: Subscribe.

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Log In. It's one of my favorite cities. Definition of oh Entry 2 of 3. OH abbreviation. Definition of OH Entry 3 of 3. Synonyms for oh Synonyms: Noun aught , cipher , goose egg , naught also nought , nil , nothing , o , zero , zilch , zip Visit the Thesaurus for More. Johnson Rjohnson al. First Known Use of oh Interjection 13th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1 Noun , in the meaning defined above.

History and Etymology for oh Interjection Middle English o Noun o ; from the similarity of the symbol for zero 0 to the letter O. Learn More About oh. Time Traveler for oh The first known use of oh was in the 13th century See more words from the same century. Phrases Related to oh oh yeah. Style: MLA. What's interesting about these latter abbreviations is that their full-form counterparts would be very unlikely to be used in running conversation, unless there was a light-hearted, mildly sarcastic undercurrent.

A possible explanation is that use of single letters H , W , D , S etc within written dialogue looks a little odd. If the reference is solely to a female partner, there's evidence for yet another alternative: SWMBO , an acronym of s he w ho m ust b e o beyed , which has more humorous, deliberately tongue-in-cheek and, caution, at worst sexist overtones.

The phrase other half dates as far back as , but was originally a reference to 'the poor' or 'the rich', depending on an individual's social perspective. OH as an abbreviation for other half in the romantic sense first began to appear in the s, though this is not the only interpretation in current usage, OH also now being used in Twitter and other social media speak as shorthand for o ver h eard often as a way of quoting from someone else without referring to their online identity.

The social media revolution has caused an explosion of abbreviations to permeate English as the global language of the Internet. These abbreviations embrace a whole range of parts of speech and grammatical structures.