You might shout, "Hooray!" when your favorite team wins a basketball tournament, or when your best friend receives a special honor during graduation. Hooray is a great word to write in response to someone's good news. The exclamation hooray was first used in the late 1600's, right around the same time as its synonym, hurrah. Huzza and huzzah are older words with the same meaning, and all of them are very similar to cheers in German, Danish, and Swedish.