shush

S1H4U1S1H4
/ʃʊʃ//ʃʌʃ/

verb

To be quiet; to keep quiet.

“Shush, my parents are back!”

UncommonScrabble 11

Meanings

shush1

verbshush (third-person singular simple present shushes, present participle shushing, simple past and past participle shushed)

present singular third person shushes · participle present shushing · participle past shushed · past shushed

  1. intransitiveonomatopoeicTo be quiet; to keep quiet.

    Shush, my parents are back!

    1 more example

    He wouldn't shush so I kicked him.

  2. intransitiveonomatopoeictransitiveTo ask someone to be quiet, especially by saying shh.

    The boy in front of us was making too much noise, so we shushed him.

    2 more examples

    The sequence where Sam carves off Jorah’s infected tissue in secret, stopping every few moments to shush his patient, is presented as comic relief why? Jorah reels back into a diagonal close-up whimpering like a dog. Yellow pus oozes to get those good gross-out laughs. Is the substance of this operation funny to anyone on its face?

    2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2017

    To this day, many in the spelling world rebuff supernatural claims: On the podcast, parents say that they’ve been “shushed” in online forums, or “shut down” from sharing their experiences at conferences.

    2025 March 3, Daniel Engber, “The Telepathy Trap”, in The Atlantic, retrieved 15 Apr 2026

Shush2

proper noun
  1. A city in Khuzestan Province, Iran, site of ancient Susa.

Synonyms & antonyms

Origin

shush · verb

Imitative. Compare shh and hush.

Full word history & related roots →

Shush · proper noun

  1. Elamite𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗
  2. Old Persian𐏂𐎢𐏁𐎠
  3. Middle Persian𐭮𐭥𐭱𐭩
  4. Persianشوش
  5. EnglishShush

Borrowed from Persian شوش (šuš), from Middle Persian 𐭮𐭥𐭱𐭩 (sūš), from Old Persian 𐏂𐎢𐏁𐎠 (çūšā), from Elamite 𒀸𒋗𒊺𒂗 (šušen). Doublet of Susa and Sus.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Arabic صَمَت
  • صَمَت (ṣamat)To be quiet
French chut
  • chutTo be quiet
Persian شوش
  • شوش (šuš)Translations
Polish Suza
  • SuzaTranslations

Rhymes & wordplay

Rhymes with shush

All rhymes →
Cite this entry
APA

shush. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shush

MLA

“shush.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shush. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “shush,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/shush.

Source: shush on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.