Hummums. A hotel in Covent Garden built on the site of a Persian or Turkish sweating bath so called in the seventeenth century. The name is Arabic.
Hundred. A Saxon subdivision of the English shires said to have been introduced by Alfred the Great. Each hundred comprised a colony of “ten times ten” families--that is to say, ten divisions of ten freeholders and their dependents in each. In all then there were one hundred champions to defend the common cause. In legal and ecclesiastical documents relative to lands such property is still said to be situate in a particular “hundred” as well as parish.
Hungary. The country of the Huns, who swarmed over from Asia and expelled the Goths from this portion of Europe in the fourth century. When first heard of in China, about a hundred years previous, the natives designated them Hiong-nu, signifying “Giants.” These Huns were really the Mongolian race still known as the Kalmucks. The suffix gary is a Western modification of the Teutonic gau, district or country.
Hungary Water. A perfume, properly called “The Queen of Hungary’s Water” from the circumstance that the recipe had been given by a hermit to one of the queens of Hungary.
Hung on Wires. An American expression for one suffering from “nerves,” a nervous or fidgety person.
Huns. See “[Hungary].”
Huntingdon. Expresses the shire most favoured for hunting, this being anciently a vast deer forest.
Hurly-burly. An expression derived from the tumult of ancient warfare, with especial reference to the hurling of spears and battle-axes. The witches in Macbeth say:
“When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.”