Olly, Olly Oxen Free

Olly, Olly Oxen Free

I liked this explanation by Brooke Adams, in the Salt Lake City Tribune on 19 July 2004

"Olly, olly oxen free!"

"It is used by kids everywhere to signal it is safe to emerge during Hide-and-Seek games. But where did this nonsensical phrase come from?

"I couldn't find a source. One game player guessed it had something to do with oxen, while another was sure it had Olde English roots.

"After the Olly, Olly cry went up in Orem the other night, I asked a few kids where it came from. Shawn Fucile, 8, figured 10 year-old Zach Hedrick made it up. Nick Robinson, 11, knew better. No, that's what you say every time, Nick explained.

My guess? All ye, all ye, come in free, which became mangled while passing from one kid to another: olly, olly oxen free. My husband says the full verse is, "Olly, olly oxen free; if you don't come now, you'll be I-T!"

You can check the archives to find many references to this phrase.

For more discussion, search the archives under "oxen."

OLLY, OLLY OXEN FREE - "If you've ever wondered about the origins of this chant - used to call in all players at the end of a game of hide-and-seek - be advised that the experts only have a partial answer to your lifelong puzzlement. Word sleuths are fairly certain that the 'oxen' (or 'octen') in the call is simply a childish corruption of 'all in.' The rest remains a mystery." From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).