eldertongue

Old English · adverb

hu

Part of speech
adverb
IPA
/xuː/
[huː]
Syllables
xuː (1 syllable)

hu1 · adverb

Senses

  1. how, in all senses, including:; to what degree

    Hū be mete? hū swīðe lyst þē þæs?

    How about food? How much dost thou desire that?

    late 9th century, King Alfred's translation of Saint Augustine's Soliloquies
  2. how, in all senses, including:; in what manner

  3. how, in all senses, including:; in what state

  4. used in exclamations

    Ēalā hū gōd mann!

    Oh, what a good person!

    c. 995, Ælfric, Extracts on Grammar in English
  5. used to introduce negative rhetorical questions

    Hū, ne eart þū sē mann þe on mīnre scōle wǣre āfēded and ġelǣred?

    Aren't you the person who was raised and taught in my school?

    late 9th century, King Alfred's translation of Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy

hu2 · conjunction

Senses

  1. how, in all senses:; in what manner

  2. how, in all senses:; that, the fact that (introducing direct statements)

Etymology

From Proto-Germanic *hwō. Cognate with Old Frisian hū, Old Saxon hū (Dutch hoe), Old High German wuo.

Descendants

hoo, how

Source: Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hu · CC BY-SA 4.0 licence · Attribution