alley oop

• alley-oop, allez-oop, allez oop, allez-up, ally-oop

Borrowed from French allez-hop!, the cry of a circus acrobat about to leap. From allez (“go! let's go!”), 2nd-person plural or formal indicative form of aller, and hop (“grunt”), from Middle French houper (“to grunt”), presumably onomatopoeic. Doublet of houp-la, from French houp-là!.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /alɪˈuːp/, /alɪˈʊp/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌæliˈup/, /ˌæliˈʊp/
• Rhymes: -uːp, -ʊp

alley oop!

1. Encouraging or calling attention to a physical performance, especially one involving an upwards lift or leap
   • 1917 September 9, B.S. Walcott, letter printed in the 6 Feb. 1918 Princeton Alumni Weekly, p. 389:

     I fortunately found a spark plug on the burn and got that repaired and alley oop!

   • 1985, Kevin Eastman & al., Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Vol. I, No. 4, page 2:

     Allez--... --oop!
     Beautiful! Great flip Mike!

   • 2003, Antoinette Stockenberg, A Month at the Shore, p. 185:

     ‘Alley-oop,’ he said, and he lifted her out of her seat as easily as if she were a bag of laundry.

• get up!, go on!, come on! (encouraging)

alley oop (not comparable)

1. (rare) Synonym of up.
   • 1923 November 8, The Daily Herald, p. 4:

     Down with the starched collars! Allez up with the soft!

alley oop (plural alley oops)

1. An instance of saying "Alley oop!"
   • 1927, Wallace Smith, Are You Decent? p. 94:

     Rollie says... we should cut out our ‘alley-oop’. He says: ‘It's vulgar, that alley-oop. Every small-time acrobat says “alley-oop”.’

2. (US sports) An alley-oop pass, catch, or move, especially (basketball) a shot made by a player as part of the same jump used to catch a pass.
   • 1965, Harold Rosenthal, The Big Play, p. 71:

     Owens helped beat the Chicago Bears with a catch he made in the end zone;... a week later he gathered in an Alley Oop from Tittle for a victory over Green Bay.

   • 2006, Snowboard Journal, No. 10, p. 29:

     It was a mystery how he managed to ride at all with that set-up, let alone tweak alley-oops on this natural quarter pipe!

   • 2017, National Basketball Association, "Top Moments: Famous Alley-oop from Kobe to Shaq Caps Lakers' Comeback":

     Kobe Bryant–to–Shaquille O'Neal alley-oops are among the most iconic and lasting NBA images of the early 2000s. The duo's alley-oop in Game 7 of the 2000 Western Conference finals stands above the rest, without a doubt.

• (basketball: alley-oop play): lob jam

alley oop (not comparable)

1. (US sports) High and arcing.
   • 1957 November 4, Y.A. Tittle, Reno Evening Gazette, p. 14:

     I decided to go for the Alley-Oop pass. I knew I had to lay it in the end zone, high, and I just rared back and threw as hard as I could.

   • 1959 January 21, "Oroville using ‘Alley Oop’ play", The Appeal–Democrat, p. 6:

     The Oroville Tigers have adapted the San Francisco '49er football team's famed... play to their own use on the basketball court.

2. (US skateboarding and snowboarding) Involving at least a 180-degree turn.
   • 1989 November 29, The Guardian, Society, p. 46:

     Do you know what an ollie to frontside 50/50 is? A stale-grab Madonna? A smith-grind to revert? An alley-oop lipslide?... They are all gravity- or death-defying tricks.

• “alley-oop, int., adv., n., and adj.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.