hiss
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /hɪs/
rhymes: -ɪs
Forms: form: hisses
form: hissing
form: hissed
form: hissed
Etymology: From Middle English hissen, probably of onomatopoeic origin. Compare Middle Dutch hissen, hisschen (“to chase away, shoo”), Middle Low German hissen (“to chase, hound, incite”).
Senses: examples: text: As I started to poke it, the snake hissed at me.
text: The poor cat hissed as it backed away from the approaching man.
text: And in his wound the seared blood did make a gréeuous sound,
 As when a peece of stéele red who tane vp with tongs is drownd
 In water by the smith, it spirts and hisseth in the trowgh.
ref: 1567, Ovid, “The Twelfth Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], →OCLC, folio 152, recto:
text: The man came back, and said something in a lower voice, to which the other replied, “she sleeps,” or Ellena was deceived by the hissing consonants of some other words.
ref: 1797, Ann Ward Radcliffe, chapter 7, in The Italian, volume II, London: T. Cadell Jun. & W. Davies, page 236
text: The frying pan hissed and sizzled as Ishvar gently slid ping-pong sized balls into the glistening oil.
ref: 1995, Rohinton Mistry, chapter 10, in A Fine Balance, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, page 487:
synonyms: fizzle
fizz
glosses: To make a hiss, a sibilant sound of air escaping.
examples: text: I stepped out of my tent in Marrakech one night to get a bar of candy and caught your dose of clap when that Wac I never even saw before hissed me into the bushes.
ref: 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 172:
glosses: To call someone by hissing.
examples: text: The crowd booed and hissed her off the stage.
text: If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.
ref: 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
text: The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee […]
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ezekiel 27:36:
text: VVherefore this Religious affection vvhich nature has implanted, and as ſtrongly rooted in Man as the feare of death or the love of vvomen, vvould be the moſt enormous ſlip or bungle ſhe could commit, ſo that ſhe vvould ſo ſhamefully faile in the laſt Act, in this contrivance of the nature of Man, that inſtead of a Plaudite ſhe vvould deſerve to be hiſſed off the Stage.
ref: 1653, Henry More, chapter XII, in An Antidote against Atheisme, or An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man, whether There Be Not a God, London: […] Roger Daniel, […], →OCLC, book II, page 102:
text: The Play, perhaps, has many things amiss:
Well, let us then reduce the point to this,
Let only those that have no failings, hiss.
ref: 1793, Elizabeth Inchbald, Every One Has His Fault, London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson, Prologue:
text: As the culprits went through the town and plantations they were laughed at, hissed, and hooted by the slaves […]
ref: 1803, Robert Charles Dallas, The History of the Maroons, London: Longman and Rees, Volume 1, Letter 5, p. 145:
text: How well I remember, her stepmother told her, the days when we Wagnerians used to hiss old Brahms—O for the rapturous rebellious days of youth.
ref: 1961, Walker Percy, The Moviegoer, New York: Ivy Books, published 1988, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 38:
glosses: To condemn or express contempt (for someone or something) by hissing.
examples: text: Lies oft o’erthrown with ceaseless Venom spread,
Still hiss out Scandal from their Hydra Head,
ref: 1761, Robert Lloyd, An Epistle to C. Churchill, London: William Flexney, page 7:
text: the long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise […]
ref: 1855, Alfred Tennyson, “Maud”, in Maud, and Other Poems, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 20:
text: It turns out that the driver of the red Ferrari that caused the crash wasn't, as I first guessed, a youngster, but a 60-year-old. Clearly, he had energy to spare, which was more than could be said about a panel I listened to around the same time as the crash. Indeed, someone hissed in my ear during a First Magazine awards ceremony in London's imposing Marlborough House on 7 December: "What we need is more old white men on the stage."
ref: 2011 December 14, John Elkington, “John Elkington”, in The Guardian:
text: 2012, Hilary Mantel, Bring Up the Bodies, New York: Henry Holt, Part 2, “Master of Phantoms,”
All day from the queen’s rooms, shouting, slamming doors, running feet: hissed conversations in undertones.
glosses: To utter (something) with a hissing sound.
examples: text: The arrow hissed through the air.
text: The Troops of Troy recede with sudden Fear,
While the swift Javelin hiss’d along in Air.
ref: 1718, Alexander Pope, transl., The Iliad of Homer, London: Bernard Lintott, Volume 4, Book 15, lines 690-691, p. 192:
text: All shod with steel
We hissed along the polished ice […]
ref: 1815, William Wordsworth, “Influence of Natural Objects”, in Poems by William Wordsworth, volume 1, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, page 46:
text: All the preceding afternoon and night heavy thunderstorms had hissed down upon the meads, and washed some of the hay into the river […]
ref: 1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXIII, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume II, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the third (The Rally), page 20:
text: Ennis del Mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames.
ref: 1997, Annie Proulx, “Brokeback Mountain”, in Close Range: Brokeback Mountain and Other Stories, London: Harper Perennial, published 2005, page 283:
glosses: To move with a hissing sound.
examples: text: The man in white pyjamas hissed soda into his glass.
ref: 1938, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, London: Heinemann, Part 2, Chapter 1, p. 72:
text: The radiator bubbled and hissed steam.
ref: 1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 26, in The Grapes of Wrath, New York: Viking, page 500:
text: He hissed air intently through a gap in his upper teeth.
ref: 1976, Ira Levin, The Boys from Brazil, New York: Dell, published 1977, Part 1, p. 16:
glosses: To emit or eject (something) with a hissing sound.
examples: text: "Are you quite sure of it," she hissed into his ear, "Mr Fang, Junior?"
ref: 1881, Elim Henry D'Avigdor, Across Country, Bradbury, Agnew:
text: "Oh please," she said, "don't let him see us!" I wouldn't let her push me away. "Stop!" she hissed. "He'll see us!"
ref: 1968, James A. Emanuel, Theodore L. Gross, Dark symphony, →ISBN:
glosses: To whisper, especially angrily or urgently.
Derived terms: boo hiss
hissable
hiss-and-tell
hisser
Hissian
hissing cockroach
hissing hot
hissingly
outhiss
unhissed
Related terms: hizz