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Hello is first recorded in the early 1800s, but was originally used to attract attention or express surprise (“Well, hello! What do we have here?”). But the true breakthrough for this now-common word was when it was employed in the service of brand-new technology: the telephone.
Hello might be derived from an older spelling variant, hullo, which the American Merriam-Webster dictionary describes as a "chiefly British variant of hello", [17] and which was originally used as an exclamation to call attention, an expression of surprise, or a greeting.
The Oxford English Dictionary says the first published use of "hello" goes back only to 1827. And it wasn't mainly a greeting back then. Ammon says people in the 1830's said hello to attract...
hello (interj.) greeting between persons meeting, 1848, the early references are to the U.S. western frontier (where hello, the house was said to be the usual greeting upon approaching a habitation).
The use of hello as a greeting is a relatively new use of the word, dating to the mid nineteenth century and only becoming popular with the advent of the telephone, but the word has precursors that date back centuries.
Hillo (or hilloa), according to the Oxford English Dictionary, could “hail a distant or occupied person.” Hollo —or halloo, hallow, holloa, ho-lo, and many other spellings—was a precursor...
The etymology of the word “Hello” can be traced back to the Old English word “hǣlan,” which means “to heal” or “to make whole.” It has evolved over time through various languages and cultural contexts, eventually becoming the common greeting we use today.
A conundrum of unknowns shroud the origin of ‘hello,’ yet its roots can be traced back to antiquity. Thought to have emerged from Old English’s “hal hael,” which roughly translates to “be healthy,” the term has since evolved into a globally recognized salutation.
The earliest known use of the word hello is in the 1820s. OED's earliest evidence for hello is from 1826, in Norwich (Conn.) Courier.
Ammon says people in the 1830's said hello to attract attention ("Hello, what do you think you're doing?"), or to express surprise ("Hello, what have we here?").