▪ a loud cry calling for the pursuit and capture of a criminal. In former English law, the cry had to be raised by the inhabitants of a hundred in which a robbery had been committed, if they were not to become liable for the damages suffered by the victim.
Word Originlate Middle English: from the Anglo-Norman French legal phrase hu e cri, literally ‘outcry and cry’, from Old French hu ‘outcry’ (from huer ‘to shout’).