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Dictionary

Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.

shush en · VERB

Pronunciation

Etymology

Imitative. Compare shh and hush.

Meanings

  1. (intransitive, onomatopoeic) To be quiet; to keep quiet.
    • Shush, my parents are back!
    • He wouldn't shush so I kicked him.
  2. (intransitive, onomatopoeic, transitive) To ask someone to be quiet, especially by saying shh.
    • The sequence where Sam carves off Jorah’s infected tissue in secret, stopping every few moments to shush his patient, is presented as comic relief why? Jorah reels back into a diagonal close-up whimpering like a dog. Yellow pus oozes to get those good gross-out laughs. Is the substance of this operation funny to anyone on its face? 2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club:
    • The boy in front of us was making too much noise, so we shushed him.
    • To this day, many in the spelling world rebuff supernatural claims: On the podcast, parents say that they’ve been “shushed” in online forums, or “shut down” from sharing their experiences at conferences. 2025 March 3, Daniel Engber, “The Telepathy Trap”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 15 Apr 2026:

Forms

SpellingFeaturesLabelsSource
shushes Number=Sing, Person=3, Tense=Pres lexicographic
shushing Tense=Pres, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
shushed Tense=Past, VerbForm=Part lexicographic
shushed Tense=Past lexicographic

Deriveds

shushing · shushee · shushy · unshushable · shusher

Relateds

shh · 🤫

Translations (4)

acw أُص (To be quiet) · ar صَمَت (To be quiet) · fr chut (To be quiet) · scn zìttiri (To be quiet)