lollapalooza

noun

lol·​la·​pa·​loo·​za ˌlä-lə-pə-ˈlü-zə 

: one that is extraordinarily impressive

also : an outstanding example

Did you know?

Some readers may recognize lollapalooza as the name of an American music festival, now held annually in Chicago. Actually, the word lollapalooza has been around since at least the 1890s, though etymologists aren't sure where it comes from. Occasionally, it has been used as a gambling term for a made-up hand used to trick an inexperienced player-but primarily the term is used in a way very similar to humdinger and doozy. It is spelled in a number of ways. Lallapalooza, lalapalooza, and lollapaloosa are among the variants, and in the past it was sometimes lalapaloozer. Pulitzer prize-winning cartoonist Rube Goldberg may have contributed to the popularity of this term with "Lala Palooza," one of his cartoon characters from the 1930s.

Synonyms

• beaut
• beauty
• bee's knees
• cat's meow
• corker
• crackerjack
• crackajack
• daisy
• dandy
• dilly
• doozy
• doozie
• doozer
• dream
• honey
• hot stuff
• humdinger
• hummer
• jim-dandy
• knockout
• lulu [slang]
• nifty
• peach
• pip
• pippin
• ripper
• ripsnorter
• snorter
• sockdolager
• sockdologer
• standout
• sweetheart

Examples of lollapalooza in a Sentence

a huge birthday bash that promises to be a lollapalooza of a party

Recent Examples on the Web

Mikhail might have shuffled off this mortal coil early, but his spirit lingers in a lollapalooza gallery that represents in flavor and type, though not in exact content, Impressionist salons in the 1870s into the early 1880s. —Brian T. Allen, National Review, 26 Feb. 2022

Worries about Trump’s button finger were seeping out of Washington even before the book lollapalooza. —Trudy Rubin, Philly.com, 5 Jan. 2018

After a lollapalooza trial, Marshall was convicted of larceny in 2009 and spent a few months in prison before his death in 2014. —Alessandra Stanley, New York Times, 6 Oct. 2017

Word History

Etymology

origin unknown

First Known Use

1896, in the meaning defined above

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