“a shouting,” mid-13c., from Old French huee “outcry, noise, tumult; war or hunting cry,” probably of imitative origin (compare French hue “gee!” a cry to horses). Hue and cry is late 13c. as an Anglo-French legal term meaning “outcry calling for pursuit of a felon” (the Medieval Latin version is huesium et clamor); extended sense of “cry of alarm” is 1580s.