Etymologically
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hush

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Pronunciation

  • /hʌʃ/, /hʊʃ/[1]

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
  • 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