whoosh
Americannoun
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whooshes
plural
verb (used without object)
-
whooshes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
whooshed,
past participle, past
-
whooshing
present participle
verb (used with object)
-
whooshes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
whooshed,
past participle, past
-
whooshing
present participle
noun
-
a hissing or rushing sound
-
a rush of emotion
a whoosh of happiness
verb
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
whooshsimple
-
whooshessimple
-
have whooshedperfect
-
has whooshedperfect
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am whooshingprogressive
-
are whooshingprogressive
-
is whooshingprogressive
-
have been whooshingperfect progressive
-
has been whooshingperfect progressive
Past
-
whooshedsimple
-
had whooshedperfect
-
was whooshingprogressive
-
were whooshingprogressive
-
had been whooshingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of whoosh
First recorded in 1840–50; imitative
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:
“We are not seeing a big whoosh in the economy. We are seeing a strengthening recovery. It’s a cyclical recovery that is eating away at spare capacity from a cyclical low point,” Conway said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 20, 2026
And then whoosh — whatever the ball hit, it knocked down everything at once.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 12, 2026
The sling whips over the top with a whoosh.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2025
The oceanic whoosh of interstellar signals to which she’s been listening without cease for years suddenly shifts into something sharp and deliberate.
From New York Times ● Mar. 21, 2024
He kept telling me it was just like dancing, and to remember the whoosh part of my dance.
From "Sunny" by Jason Reynolds
Prescient stock picks and whooshes of inflows have vaulted its assets under management to more than $20 billion, people familiar with the matter said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
Within five milliseconds of that contact, the spinning blade comes to a dramatic brake, and the blade whooshes below the table.
From BBC ● May 11, 2026
Its whooshes seep into the room, neatly complementing the motion of a computer-animated, widescreen video projection, “Lightscape of the Silence.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 21, 2023
The train on the opposite track whooshes into the station, cutting the boy and girl off from each other.
From New York Times ● May 8, 2022
I’m about to turn around to look, but another gust of wind whooshes past me, and I’m back in Ms. Lena’s office.
From "The Manifestor Prophecy" by Angie Thomas
In Asia, Seoul stocks whooshed 75 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index bounced 28 percent and Tokyo's Nikkei 225 rocketed more than 26 percent.
From Barron's ● Jan. 2, 2026
Edgar Allan Poe, for example, wrote a short story about a comet passing close to Earth, extracting all the nitrogen from our atmosphere as it whooshed past.
From Salon ● Oct. 8, 2023
We whooshed down toward the earth and back up again.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 14, 2023
Above us, the blades whooshed rhythmically, their heads rotating to the wind like a crowd following a tennis match.
From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2022
Suddenly, the double doors of the parlor whooshed open.
From "Moon Over Manifest" by Clare Vanderpool
Liza N. remembers an aspect of it that images can’t convey: “I will never forget the whooshing sound it made. You could hear it from the east and travel westward. It was magical.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 2, 2026
People often describe it as ringing, buzzing, hissing, or whooshing in one or both ears.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 10, 2026
"And then, just all of a sudden, there was just a really loud bang and lots of whooshing air, like the door burst open," a flight attendant said.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2024
That lemon drop was a stunt in itself: made with lots of swirling and pouring and whooshing about, yet somehow simultaneously effortless.
From Seattle Times ● May 21, 2024
Laila put her ear over Aziza’s mouth, dreading each time that she would not hear the shallow whooshing of breath.
From "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini
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.
