CHEERING, the uttering or making of sounds encouraging, stimulating or exciting to action, indicating approval or acclaiming or welcoming persons, announcements of events and the like. The word "cheer" meant originally face, countenance, expression (Low Lat. Cara), and was at first qualified with epithets, both of joy and sorrow; compare "She thanked Dyomede for alle . . . his gode chere" (Chaucer, Troylus) with "If they sing ... 'tis with so dull a cheere" (Shakespeare, Sonnets, xcvii.). An early transference in meaning was to hospitality or entertainment, and hence to food and drink, "good cheer." The sense of a shout of encouragement or applause is a late use.
Of the different words or sounds that are used in cheering, "hurrah," though now generally looked on as the typical British form of cheer, is found in various forms in German, Scandinavian, Russian (urci), French (houra) ; it is probably onomatopoeic in origin. The German hock, the French vine, Italian and Spanish viva, evviva, are cries rather of acclamation than encouragement. The Japanese shout, banzai, became familiar during the Russo Japanese War. In reports of parliamentary debates "cheers" indicates that approval was shown by emphatic utterances of "hear hear." Cheering may be tumultuous or it may be conducted rhythmically by prearrangement, as in the case of the "Hip-hip hip" by way of introduction to a simultaneous "hurrah." Rhythmical cheering has been developed to its greatest extent in America in the college yells, which may be regarded as a de velopment of the primitive war-cry. The original yells of Harvard and Yale are identical in form, being composed of rah (abbrevia tion of hurrah) nine times repeated, shouted in unison with the name of the university at the end. The Yale cheer is given faster than that of Harvard. Many institutions have several different yells; the best known of these variants is the Yale cheer, partly taken from the Frogs of Aristophanes: Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax, Brekekekex, ko-ax, ko-ax, 0-6p, 0-6p, parabalof , Yale, Yale, Yale, Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, Yale! Yale! Yale! The "railroad cheer" is like the foregoing, but begun very slowly and broadly, and gradually accelerated to the end, which is enunciated as fast as possible. Many cheers are formed like that of Toronto university : Varsity, varsity, V-a-r-s-i-t-y (spelled)