hist

Etymology

It is an imitative or natural exclamation,^[2][3][4][5] comparable with st and whisht;^[2][3] Hoad compares an older ist of the 16th century.^[6] Partridge takes it as a weakened variant of whist, and compares German pst.^[7] Merriam-Webster Unabridged calls its origin unknown.^[8] Etymonline suggests the sound was chosen because it is easy to hear and stops suddenly,^[9] and Johnson (1755), who knew no origin for it, guessed at a corruption of hush.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Used to call for silence, attract attention or ask someone to listen: 1599, in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1592,^[8] Dictionary.com to 1595–1605,^[11] and Etymonline to the 1610s.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Johnson (1755) quoted Juliet's "Hist! Romeo, hist!" for the sense of an exclamation commanding silence.^[10] The interjection soon became a verb: in 1604 Middleton used it for urging on with the cry "hist",^[2] and Milton's Il Penseroso (1645) has "the mute Silence hist along", where the verb means to summon silently;^[2][5] that sense lasted until 1778.^[2] In the 19th century poets used the verb for "to be silent".^[2][3] From 1842 the interjection was also used to urge on a dog or other animal.^[2] In Scotland, Ireland and several English counties hist was a call to a dog or a horse, and hist ye meant "hurry up"; in the west of Ireland the verb meant to make a hissing sound when driving geese or turkeys.^[12] The OED now calls the interjection somewhat archaic.^[2]

Timeline

• 1599 – interjection, calling for silence or attention, in Romeo and Juliet.^[2]
• 1604 – verb, to urge on with the cry hist.^[2]
• 1645 – verb, to summon silently, in Milton (obsolete by 1778).^[2]
• 1842 – interjection, urging on a dog or other animal.^[2]
• 1867 – verb, poetic, to be silent.^[2]

Meanings

Interjection

1. Used to call for silence or to attract someone's attention quietly: Hist! Someone is coming up the stairs.^[13][8][2]
2. (rare) Used to urge on a dog or other animal.^[2][3]

Verb

1. (poetic) To urge on or incite.^[3][2]
2. (poetic) To be silent.^[3][2]
3. (obsolete, 1645–1778) To summon with the cry hist; to summon silently.^[2][3]

Related words

• whist
• whisht
• hush
• st

Usage notes

Merriam-Webster Unabridged notes that the call is usually spoken as a prolonged s sound, often with a p before it or a t after it, and that the spelling is read aloud as /hɪst/.^[8] The American regional verb hist, to raise or hoist, and also to steal, recorded from 1707, is a variant of hoist and is related to heist.^[2][3] In American campus slang of the late 1980s, hist meant "finished" or "goodbye", from be history.^[14]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
6. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
8. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
13. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com