hush

Etymology

The verb is probably a back-formation from Middle English husht (“silent, quiet”),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} whose final -t came to be taken for the ending of a past participle, as if the adjective meant "hushed".^[3][5][7][8] Etymonline likewise explains the loss of the -t as a misreading of it as a past-tense suffix.^[9] The Middle English adjective, also spelled hust, huisht and whist, meant "silent, still" and was also used as a command to be quiet;^[10] Barnhart dates the form hust to about 1380, in Chaucer's translation of Boethius, huisht to about 1385, in Usk's “Testament of Love”, and huscht to about 1405.^[11] The word is imitative, a natural sound enjoining silence,^{[10][9][2][12][13]} and Etymonline quotes the Century Dictionary's view that such hissing sounds need the least effort of the muscles and can be uttered most faintly.^[9] Skeat compares Swedish hyssja (“to hush”),^[13] and Weekley compares Danish hysse (“to silence”), from the interjection hys.^[14] According to the OED, the interjection is a later form of the Middle English interjection, and might also be taken as the imperative of the verb;^[3][4] Barnhart derives it instead from the interjection whist.^[11] The noun and the adjective hush were formed from the verb.^[3][9][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make someone or something silent or quiet: 1546, in the Supplication of the Poor Commons.^[3][8][11] The Middle English adjective is older: Chaucer's Knight's Tale has "Whan they were set and hust was al the place".^[10]

Semantic evolution

The intransitive use, to become quiet, followed in 1548, in Udall's translation of Erasmus's Paraphrase,^[3] though Etymonline dates it to the 1560s.^[9] From 1632 the verb was used figuratively for calming or allaying anything disturbing, and, usually as hush up, for keeping something from becoming known;^[3][9] hush-money, a bribe paid for silence, is recorded from 1709.^[9] The adjective, "silent, still", appears in Shakespeare's Hamlet (1604), and Johnson (1755) quoted it from there: "As hush as death".^[3][15] The interjection, a command to be silent, is first recorded in Cawdrey's dictionary of the same year.^[3] The noun, stillness or silence, is recorded from 1689 but was rare until the 19th century, when, perhaps following Byron, it became common in prose and poetry.^[3][11] The 20th century added the sense "secret": hush-hush from 1916, and the adjective hush itself from 1944.^[11][3] In 18th-century criminal slang a hush was a bribe, and to hush someone was to murder them.^[16] In phonetics a hush is the sound sh or zh (1933, in Bloomfield's Language).^[3][8]

Timeline

• c. 1380 – hust, silent, in Chaucer's Boethius.^[11]
• 1546 – verb, to make silent.^[3][8][11]
• 1548 – verb, to become silent.^[3]
• 1604 – adjective, silent, in Hamlet; interjection, in Cawdrey.^[3]
• 1632 – to allay or suppress, and hush up, to keep secret.^[3][9]
• 1689 – noun, stillness, silence.^[3][11]
• 1709 – hush-money.^[9]
• 1725 – criminal slang, a bribe; to murder.^[16]
• 1878 – hush one's mouth, be quiet, according to Etymonline; the OED's first record, as US dialect, is from 1903.^[9][3]
• 1916 – hush-hush, secret.^[11]
• 1933 – phonetics, the sound sh or zh.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make quiet or silent: The teacher hushed the class with a look.^[7][8][2]
2. To become quiet or still; often with up.^[7][2][3]
3. To calm or soothe: He hushed the crying baby.^[7][2][8]
4. hush up: to keep something from becoming known; to suppress talk of it: The firm tried to hush up the accident.^[2][8][3]

Noun

1. Silence or stillness, especially after noise: A hush fell over the room.^[2][7][8]
2. An act of hushing, an utterance of hush!^[7][3]
3. Secrecy; the keeping back of information.^[8][3]
4. (phonetics) The sibilant sound sh or zh.^[8][3]

Interjection

1. Be quiet!: a call for silence.^[7][3][2]

Adjective

1. (archaic) Silent, quiet, still.^[2][3][4]

Word family

• hushful
• hushfully
• hushaby
• hush-hush
• hush money
• hush puppy

Related words

• hist
• whist
• shush
• lullaby

Usage notes

Several dialect and technical uses of hush have separate, echoic sources.^[3][4][8] In Scotland and northern England a hush is a sudden gush or rush of water, or its sound,^[17][8] and in lead mining to hush is to send a rush of water over a slope to uncover ore (from 1752).^[3][4] In Scotland, Ireland, Suffolk and Cornwall hush was also a cry to scare off birds, and the verb meant to drive them away (from 1616).^[17][3] In Scotland the word is also a name of the lumpfish, perhaps from Dutch.^[3][17] Scots also used hush for lulling a child to sleep,^[17] and hushaby, used in lulling a child, is recorded from the 18th century;^[12] Partridge takes it as a blend of hush and lullaby.^[18]

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
12. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ a b c d 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)
18. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul