Word of the Day

: April 11, 2008

alley-oop

noun al-ee-OOP

What It Means

: a basketball play in which a leaping player catches a pass above the basket and immediately dunks the ball; also : the usually looping pass thrown on such a play

alley-oop in Context

"With alley-oops, slam dunks and big smiles, the West [All-Stars] showed why Friday night's contest was called an all-star game . . ." (Peter Pupello, St. Petersburg Times [Florida], March 29, 2008)

Did You Know?

"Alley-oop" was first heard by English ears under the big tops of early 20th-century circuses. When acrobats were about to leap to their trapezes, they would often cry the similarly sounding French word "allez-oop" -- an interjection meaning roughly "go up." Both "acrobat" and "trapeze" are also French derivatives, leaping into the English language in the 19th century, so the French parentage of "alley-oop" is not surprising. By the 1950s, the word was also being used on the gridiron and the hardwood for show-stopping arcing passes and leaping dunks. Its latest venue is the half-pipe, where skateboarders and snowboarders pull "alley-oop" spinning tricks.