hébe-hóba

Hungarian

Etymology

hé (“Old Hungarian variant of hő (“heat”)”) + -be (“in”) + hó (“snow”) + -ba (“in”). Its original meaning was "in heat and in snow", that is "always". Later, the meaning of its parts had faded because of its similarity to twin words such as gizgaz (“weed”), mendemonda (“hearsay”), this may be how its current meaning changed to "sometimes". [1]

Pronunciation
  • IPA(key): [ˈheːbɛhoːbɒ]
  • Audio(file)
  • Hyphenation: hé‧be-‧hó‧ba

Adverb

hébe-hóba

  1. (idiomatic) every now and then, every once in a while, sometimes (very seldom)

Synonyms

References
  1. Zaicz, Gábor. Etimológiai szótár: Magyar szavak és toldalékok eredete (’Dictionary of Etymology: The origin of Hungarian words and affixes’). Budapest: Tinta Könyvkiadó, 2006, →ISBN
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