hush
Americaninterjection
verb (used without object)
-
hushes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hushed,
past participle, past
-
hushing
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
hushes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
hushed,
past participle, past
-
hushing
present participle
-
to make silent; silence.
-
to suppress mention of; keep concealed (often followed byup ).
They hushed up the scandal.
-
to calm, quiet, or allay.
to hush someone's fears.
noun
-
hushes
plural
-
silence or quiet, especially after noise.
- Synonyms:
- tranquility, stillness, peace
-
Phonetics. either of the sibilant sounds (sh) and (zh).
adjective
verb
-
to make or become silent; quieten
-
to soothe or be soothed
noun
-
stillness; silence
-
an act of hushing
interjection
verb
-
to run water over the ground to erode (surface soil), revealing the underlying strata and any valuable minerals present
-
to wash (an ore) by removing particles of earth with rushing water
noun
Synonym Usage
See still 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
hushsimple
-
hushessimple
-
have hushedperfect
-
has hushedperfect
-
am hushingprogressive
-
are hushingprogressive
-
is hushingprogressive
-
have been hushingperfect progressive
-
has been hushingperfect progressive
Past
-
hushedsimple
-
had hushedperfect
-
was hushingprogressive
-
were hushingprogressive
-
had been hushingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of hush
1350–1400; apparently back formation from husht whist 2 ( Middle English huissht ), the -t being taken for past participle suffix
Explanation
To hush is to become quiet. When an audience is eager to hear a speaker, it will hush as soon as she begins to talk. Train passengers will usually hush their conversations when the conductor reminds them that they're in the quiet car, and one of a kindergarten teacher's skills is getting his class to hush. In fact, to quiet another person or group of people is also to hush: "The principal impatiently hushes the students as soon as they start giggling." A peaceful silence is another kind of hush. In Middle English, it was the imitative huisht.
Vocabulary lists containing hush
Selection Vocabulary 3, Unit 3
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It’s easy to picture the fantasy kitchen: matching sets, gleaming gadgets, drawers that close with a soft, expensive hush.
From Salon ● Apr. 21, 2026
Hellerstein has also tangled with Donald Trump, rejecting a request by the US president to have his New York hush money case moved to federal court.
From Barron's ● Mar. 24, 2026
Amanda is enraptured with its aspirational luxury: “The house had that hush expensive houses do. Silence meant the house was plumb, solid, its organs working in happy harmony.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026
But nothing was done in a "don't ask, don't tell" culture, with it being felt it was "safe to hush it up", the review led by barrister Gabrielle Higgins found.
From BBC ● Feb. 26, 2026
Even the birds were stunned into abnormal hush.
From "Impossible Creatures" by Katherine Rundell
After the opening run of songs, she hushes the audience and spends two minutes looping her voice.
From BBC ● Aug. 16, 2026
“Very sad. Absolutely,” says Winkler, in a quiet voice that hushes his “Barry” cast mates.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 24, 2023
They’re practicing “the mirror,” an improv exercise in a theater classroom, and the room suddenly hushes.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 10, 2023
The Lake Shore Limited hushes through the early-morning darkness, following the same route as that special train, back in 1948, whisking a raucous group of baseball men to Cleveland for celebrations and a parade.
From New York Times ● Oct. 26, 2016
But once the snow covers the ground, it hushes as still as my heart.
From "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson
In 1997, the nation's hearts went out to the two young boys, then aged 15 and 12, as they accompanied Diana's coffin through hushed London streets at her funeral.
From Barron's ● Aug. 21, 2026
Spoken in a colloquial mix of English and Armenian, the recording became the introduction to “Canopies,” a song with the hushed, rocking cadence of a lullaby that Korkejian wrote from her grandmother’s perspective.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 29, 2026
The walls carry bottles, cans, jars, and echo hushed conversation.
From Salon ● Jun. 23, 2026
You could only hear her offer a hushed “no” because the room had never been more silent.
From Slate ● Jun. 16, 2026
It is a question that others have asked in hushed whispers throughout the afternoon and has been met with various answers, few of them satisfying.
From "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern
“What I hope is we don’t go to what I would call diversity hushing, where people don’t want to talk about what they’re doing,” Tharp said.
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 16, 2024
Blanchett emphasizes Lydia’s acute sensitivity to sound, whether she’s hushing someone’s nervous physical tic or picking up on eerie disturbances in her apartment late at night.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 6, 2022
They were capable of hushing all but the loudest noises on the NYC subway, but in my not-so-loud home environment, some distracting sounds still found their way to my ears.
From The Verge ● May 24, 2022
They have also taken to hushing nearby adults, so they can better hear their shows.
From Slate ● Apr. 9, 2021
Roberto quickly directed my attention to the officer with a shift of his eyes and put his index finger to his lips, hushing me.
From "Breaking Through" by Francisco Jiménez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
