hubbub

noun

1. (countable)A confused sound of a crowd of people shouting or speaking simultaneously; an uproar.

   “They heard a noyſe of many bagpipes ſhrill, / And ſhrieking Hububs them approching nere, / VVhich all the foreſt did vvith horrour fill: […]”

   “And had not the old-man come in vvith a VVhoo-bub againſt his Daughter, and the Kings Sonne, and ſcar'd my Chovvghes from the Chaffe, I had not left a Purſe aliue in the vvhole Army.”

   “At length a univerſal hubbub vvilde / Of ſtunning ſounds and voices all confus'd, / Born [borne] through the hollovv dark aſſaults his eare / VVith loudeſt vehemence: […]”

   “[T]he mighty Amsterdam, […] its Exchange resounding with the endless hubbub of all the languages spoken by civilised men.”

2. (broadly, uncountable)Noisy confusion; commotion, uproar; (countable) an instance of this; an ado, a commotion.

   “The vvindovves clattring / And all the Chambermaides in ſuch a vvhobub, / One vvith her ſmocke halfe off, another in haſt / VVith a ſervingmans hoſe upon her head.”

   “[page 123] [E]ven as they entred into the fair, all the people in the fair vvere moved, and the Tovvn it ſelf as it vvere in a Hubbub about them; […] [page 127] Then vvere theſe tvvo poor men brought before their Examiners again, and there charged as being guilty of the late Hubbub that had been in the fair.”

   “[T]hey asked the reaſon of the hubbub, and tumult. And vvith that every man began to tell his ovvn tale, ſo that nothing could be heard diſtinctly: […]”

   “A scene of uproar and hubbub ensued that defies description.”

   “The place will be in a fine hubbub, I suppose.”

3. (countable, obsolete)A sound of people making a battle cry or war cry.
4. (US, historical, uncountable)Synonym of bowl game (“a Native American game of chance involving the throwing of colored nuts from a bowl, comparable to dice”).

verb

1. (intransitive, rare)To make a confused sound of a crowd of people shouting or speaking simultaneously; to cause a racket or tumult.

   “Then, what wretched writing?—"Poured upon the plain,"—"scatter o'er the fields,"—"whitens all the skies,"—"brighten all the fields,"—"flame the skies,"—and "laugh the fields," all huddled and hubbubbed together into one chaotic sentence.”

   “It becomes a grotto, hubbubbing with more noise than any class on a school visit could make, the air mobbed by breathless chatter about life and the transfer window.”