olé

From the Spanish olé.

• IPA^(key): /oʊˈleɪ/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪ
• Homophone: olay

olé

1. An expression of excitement. Hooray!

• Leo, Loe, leo, loe, OEL, EOL, LEO, LoE, elo, Elo

Borrowed from Spanish olé.

• Rhymes: -ɛ
• Hyphenation: o‧lé

olé

1. olé, an expression of encouragement and approval
2. (rare) hello

   Synonym: olá

• The interjection was commonly shouted in bullfighting every time the matador managed to avoid being hit by the bull. The sense was later brought to sports, mainly soccer, and is shouted when a player manages to dribble their opponent.

olé m (plural olés)

1. (Brazil, colloquial, chiefly soccer) series of dribbles done by a team
2. (Brazil, colloquial) trick; mislead
   • 2009 May 15, Alon Feuerwerker, “Um "xis" em Meirelles”, in Correio Braziliense‎^[2], Brasília, DF: Diários Associados, retrieved 23 July 2023, Política, page 04:

     Escrevi aqui outro dia que Henrique Meirelles vinha aplicando um olé em Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva no debate sobre a relação entre a taxa de juros e a remuneração da caderneta de poupança.

     I wrote here the other day that Henrique Meirelles had been applying an trick to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in the debate on the relationship between the interest rate and the remuneration of the savings account.

   • 2020 July 24, João Batista Jr., “Neymar anda tomando um olé do mercado publicitário”, in Veja‎^[3], number 2697, São Paulo: Grupo Abril, retrieved 23 July 2023, Veja Gente:

     Neymar anda tomando um olé do mercado publicitário. As quedas falsas durante a Copa de 2018, o escândalo com Najila Trindade em 2019 e a enorme capacidade de se meter em polêmicas a todo momento fizeram com que o jogador caísse no ranking de garotos-propaganda mais valorizados do país.

     Neymar has been taking a series of dribbles from the advertising market. The false falls during the 2018 World Cup, the scandal with Najila Trindade in 2019 and the enormous capacity to get involved in controversies at all times caused the player to fall in the ranking of the most valued poster boys in the country.

• dar um olé

• “olé”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2025
• “olé”, in Dicionário inFormal (in Portuguese), 2006–2025
• “olé”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “olé”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “olé”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

• ole

• IPA^(key): /oˈle/ [oˈle]
• Rhymes: -e
• Syllabification: o‧lé

Unknown. Often supposed to be from Arabic الله (allāh, “God!”), used e.g. to express surprise, excitement, etc., and/or from related وَاللهِ (wa-llāhi, “by God!”), used as an oath or strong agreement. The Spanish Arabist Federico Corriente, however, counted the terms among the “falsos arabismos” (false Arabisms) in his work Diccionario de Arabismos y Voces Afines en Iberorromance.^[2][3]

The counterargument is mainly phonetic, Arabic الله (allāh) being generally pronounced with a dark L and back vowels ([ɑlˤˈlˤɑːh]), which makes the Spanish /e/ problematic. Note, however, that the pronunciation becomes clear and front when /i/ precedes (e.g. لله [lɪlˈlæːh]). Perhaps this front articulation was generalized in (parts of) Andalusian Arabic.

olé

1. an expression of encouragement and approval

• The interjection was commonly shouted in bullfighting every time the matador managed to avoid being hit by the bull. The sense was later brought to sports, mainly soccer, and is shouted when a player manages to dribble their opponent.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

olé

1. second-person singular voseo imperative of oler

• “olé”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024