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Hiss   Listen
noun
Hiss  n.  
1.
A prolonged sound like that letter s, made by forcing out the breath between the tongue and teeth, esp. as a token of disapprobation or contempt. ""Hiss" implies audible friction of breath consonants." "A dismal, universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn."
2.
Any sound resembling that above described; as:
(a)
The noise made by a serpent. "But hiss for hiss returned with forked tongue."
(b)
The note of a goose when irritated.
(c)
The noise made by steam escaping through a narrow orifice, or by water falling on a hot stove.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Hiss" Quotes from Famous Books



... instruction. But nothing was so thrilling as this: to wait and struggle among these clanging, rending iron boxes, with the repeated explosions of the shells and the artillery, the noise of the projectiles striking the cars, the hiss as they passed in the air, the grunting and puffing of the engine—poor, tortured thing, hammered by at least a dozen shells, any one of which, by penetrating the boiler, might have made an end of all—the expectation of destruction as a matter of course, the realization of ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill

... touched earth, a low hiss warned him he was trespassing, and clutching Terry's collar, he stood rigid, while the whip-like shadow of death writhed across a strip of moonlight—and disappeared. There was life,—of a sort, in Chitor. So Roy trod warily as ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver

... breathing of the man, and I could tell every time that his knife struck home, by a peculiar hiss that escaped the snake. It was like the sudden escape ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... had gathered in front of the door longing, and yet dreading, to get a sight of them. Some inhabitants would have liked to hiss, but lacked unanimity or courage, nobody wanted to begin. Some would have liked to speak, but had not considered ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... from our ruined marts, We heard th' undying serpent hiss, And in the desert of our hearts The fatal ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various

... M. Doty, Jr., of Harvard's Chemistry Department; Professor Lloyd Reynolds, Yale University economist; Professor Louis B. Sohn of the Harvard Law School; Dr. Joseph E. Johnson, an old friend and former associate of Alger Hiss in the State Department, who succeeded Hiss as President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and still holds that position; Professor Robert R. Bowie, former head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff ...
— The Invisible Government • Dan Smoot

... partner Ned, I know, thinks he, He'll mak hiss en secure o' me, He's often said he'd treat me rarely; But I's think o' some other fun, I'll aim for some rich farmer's son, And cheat oor simple Neddy fairly, ...
— Yorkshire Dialect Poems • F.W. Moorman

... have to pretend that you don't mind the smell of cooking fish; but it really isn't so bad when one is hungry," she said, as the pan began to hiss and the fish ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice

... Nay, obvious coil, and hiss most unequivocal, betray the Snake; As fell ophidian as in fierce meridian of Afric ever lurked in swamp or brake; And yet Corinthian LYCIUS never doted on the white-throated charmer of his soul ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 4, 1891 • Various

... wounds, he began to hiss like a serpent, and springing forwards breathed upon the princess, filling the air ...
— Fairy Tales of the Slav Peasants and Herdsmen • Alexander Chodsko

... not stir. He sat there as though made of stone, that awful hiss still sounding in his ears. Miss Grey's voice came to him as from some great distance. He did not seem to realize what she was saying to him. She saw his white face, and the vacant look in his eyes, and she pitied him; but she had her duty ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene

... make in the earth; for they have no wit to make them houses. And when they see any man passing through their countries they hide them in their caves. And they eat flesh of serpents, and they eat but little. And they speak nought, but they hiss as serpents do. And they set no price by no avoir ne riches, but only of a precious stone, that is amongst them, that is of sixty colours. And for the name of the isle, they clepe it Tracodon. And they love more ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... clumsy suits, Jackson, Van Emmon, and Smith took their places within the vestibule; while the doctor, who had volunteered to stay behind, watched them open the outer door. With a hiss all the air in the vestibule rushed out; and the doctor earnestly thanked his stars that the inner door had been ...
— The Lord of Death and the Queen of Life • Homer Eon Flint

... limping along back streets and resting in dark corners, I arrived at my destination at midnight, and found that a window had been left open. It was a brave task to jump down but better than staying out all night, so I set my teeth and leaped softly in. I was greeted with a snarl and hiss which sounded like a bunch of fire-crackers going off, and there was mother on guard, standing with arched back in front of a box of newly-born kittens in a dark corner. I crept toward her and with a cry of delight she recognized me. ...
— The Nomad of the Nine Lives • A. Frances Friebe

... but just come into view when her mate was killed, and she darted at the serpent with a yell of rage which was answered by an angry hiss. ...
— The Search for the Silver City - A Tale of Adventure in Yucatan • James Otis

... had vigor to sing, the song of the mill knew no resting; morning and evening, day and night it crooned its rhythmic tune; only during the daylight Sundays did its murmur die to a sibilant hiss. All the week its doors were filled with the coming and going of men and women and children: many men, more women, and greater and greater throngs of children. It seemed to devour children, sitting with its myriad eyes gleaming and its black maw open, drawing in the pale white ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois

... the wind doth blow, And coughing drowns the parson's saw, And birds sit brooding in the snow, And Marian's nose looks red and raw, When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl, Then nightly sings the staring owl, To-who; Tu-whit, to-who, a merry note, While greasy Joan doth ...
— Required Poems for Reading and Memorizing - Third and Fourth Grades, Prescribed by State Courses of Study • Anonymous

... Carolina to that which they now hold. I come to you from the South—from the home of secession—from that State where the leaders of—(the balance of the sentence of the speaker was drowned by hisses). Mr. Tillman (resuming): There are only three things in the world that can hiss—a goose, ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley

... and the slaves were not much more at ease after finding out that this monster was a creature of human contrivance than they were the night before when they thought it the Lord of heaven and earth. They started, in fright, every time the gauge-cocks sent out an angry hiss, and they quaked from head to foot when the mud-valves thundered. The shivering of the boat under the beating of the wheels was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... tug, which had been hovering about for some time, came screaming alongside. There was a hiss from its wave-splashed deck, and a rocket with a blue light flashed up into the sky. A man who had formed one of the long line of passengers, leaning over the rail, watching the tug since it had come into sight, now turned away and walked briskly to the steps leading to the bridge. As it ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the scenes do appear very fine indeed, and much better than in the pit. The house infinite full, and the King and Duke of York there. The whole house was mightily pleased all along till the reading of a letter, which was so long and so unnecessary that they frequently began to laugh, and to hiss twenty times, that had it not been for the King's being there, they had certainly hissed it off ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys

... . . . rain . . . rain . . . we are buried in rain, It will rain forever, the swift wheels hiss through water, Pale sheets of water gleam in the windy street. The pealing of bells is lost in a drive of rain-drops. Remote and ...
— The House of Dust - A Symphony • Conrad Aiken

... abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core. Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange that I should choose ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... Hilliard Joseph Hilliard Nicholas Hillory Hale Hilton Nathaniel Hilton Benjamin Himsley Peter Hinch James Hines William Hinley Aaron Hinman William Hinman Nathaniel Hinnran Jonathan Hint John Hirich Christian Hiris Samuel Hiron John Hisburn Nathaniel Hise Samuel Hiskman John Hislop Philip Hiss Loren Hitch Robert Hitch Joseph Hitchband Edward Hitchcock Robert Hitcher John Hitching Arthur Hives Willis Hoag Edwin Hoane Henry Hobbs William Hobbs Jacob Hobby Nathaniel Hobby Joseph Hockless Hugh Hodge Hercules Hodges (2) Benjamin Hodgkinson Samuel ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge

... the dark, I missed the third, the bells in my cap jangling at the shock. I brought my teeth together and stood breathless in apprehension, fearing that the noise might awaken him, and cursing myself for a careless fool to have forgotten those infernal bells. Above me I heard a warning hiss from old Mariani, which, if anything, increased my dread. But Ramiro snored ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... singular custom in England, Germany, and along the banks of the Moselle. Until within late years, the people were wont to assemble yearly upon a mountain, to set fire to a huge wooden wheel, twined with straw, which, all ablaze, was then sent rolling down the hill, to plunge with a hiss ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber

... Chevillard's concerts—a place which Lamoureux would never have given it. Then the younger and more enthusiastic part of the public began to revolt; and very soon, with perfect impartiality and quite indiscriminately, began to hiss famous and obscure virtuosi alike in their performance of any concerto, whether it was splendid or detestable. Nothing found favour with them—neither the playing of Paderewski, nor the music of Saint-Saens and the great ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland

... powder-parcels, strong scent, A few large stars overhead, silent and mournful shining, Delicate sniffs of sea-breeze, smells of sedgy grass and fields by the shore, death-messages given in charge to survivors, The hiss of the surgeon's knife, the gnawing teeth of his saw, Wheeze, cluck, swash of falling blood, short wild scream, and long, dull, tapering groan, These ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... knew, they were open also to another soul. We could see nothing save the Altar and the Effigy, we could only hear the slow chant of the priests and priestesses and the snake-like hiss of the rushing fires. Yet we knew that our hearts were as an open book to One who watched beneath the ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard

... the casement of the inn: every thing seemed to indicate a tempestuous evening. But the storm which threatened to rage without was unnoticed.—Though the drops fell heavily; though gleams of lightning flashed by, followed by the report of distant thunder, and the winds began to hiss and whistle among the trees of the neighbouring cemetery, yet all these external signs of elementary tumult were as nothing to the deep, solemn footsteps of the Red Man. There seemed to be no end to his walking. An hour had he paced up and down the chamber without the least interval of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 402, Supplementary Number (1829) • Various

... very rim of the medicine-spring. His head hung forward on his chest. All his muscles were soft and relaxed. After a while the hangings of the cave entrance were drawn a little to one side and a stone plumped into the spring with a savage hiss; another followed—another—and another and another. Steam began to rise from the surface of the spring, little bubbles darted up from the bottom and burst. More hot stones were thrown into the water. Steam, soft and caressing, filled the cave. The temperature rose by leaps and ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction, like a serpent. She had just succeeded in curving it down into a graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a hurry: a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating her violently ...
— Alice's Adventures in Wonderland • Lewis Carroll

... spirit sank within her. The season had been dry, and she knew the path by instinct; but the storm and the darkness seemed like twin enemies determined to bar her advance. She felt that Nature was her foe, even as man had been, and as Rehoboth would be when it knew of her return. Why did the rain hiss, and dash its cold and stinging showers in her face? Why did it saturate her thin skirts so that they, in chill folds, wrapped her wasted frame and clung cruelly to her weary limbs to stay her onward ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather

... talking about the fast-gathering tide of opinion which, driven on by the wind of words, had already begun to beat so furiously against the moles and ramparts of Church and kingdom. The execution of lord Strafford was news that had not yet begun to 'hiss the speaker.' ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald

... a little laugh, a hiss or two rebuked the disorder; then the baton signalled the orchestra, and the music recommenced, smoothly and in perfect time; the conductor had never turned his head. The curtain went ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark

... himself confronted by a bloated toad. The amphibian surveyed him solemnly, but never moved. A low hiss whistled through the grass. He crouched in terror while four feet of grass-snake undulated by. A shrewmouse broke cover in front of him, followed by its mate. The air resounded with shrill defiant squeaks as the two bunchy velvet balls rolled ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English

... ground and made myself as small as I could, for I knowed that if they fired into sich a crowd with cannon it 'ud just mow 'em down like grass. The next minute I heerd an orficer's voice singin' out, "Halt! front! fire!" But instead of the bang of a cannon there cum a hiss like fifty tea-kettles a-bilin' over, and then a great splash, and the crowd scattered fifty ways at once; and I found myself wringin' wet all in a minute. Then somebody gripped hold o' me and pulled me up, and there was Feodoroff, and beside him Lieutenant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... rolling together in huge opaque masses, which presently began to close in and become denser as the night advanced. By and by a wild wind awoke, as it were, from the very cavities of ocean, and the waves began to hiss warnings all along the coast, and to rise higher and higher over each other's shoulders as the gale steadily increased. Rene Ronsard, sitting in his cottage, feeble and somewhat ailing, heard the beginnings of the tempest with long-accustomed ears. He was depressed in spirit, yet ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli

... creeds,-above all religions, after all, is that divine thing,—Humanity; and now and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the rocks and breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of flame writhe and hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a deed that glitters like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of superstition. All these frightful doctrines have been used to ...
— The Ghosts - And Other Lectures • Robert G. Ingersoll

... serpent in his bosom. And the serpent never crosses the path of man if he can help it. The most deadly is that which is too sluggish to get out of his way—therefore bites in self-defense. And the serpent generally gives some warning hiss, or a rattle. Indeed, almost every animal gives warning of its foul intent. The shark turns over before seizing its prey. But the false friend (I am obliged to couple these words) takes you in without changing his side.... In truth, a man, if he has a vice, be it treachery or any other, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various

... an' 'ere's wishing of you luck! Wich you're proving an addition to our forces. So 'ere's to you, though 'tis true that at El Teb you cut and ran; You're improvin' from a scuttler to a first-class fighting man; You can 'old your own at present when the bullets hiss and buzz, And in time you may be equal to a ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, January 14, 1893 • Various

... power and manifestation in either the inward or the outward being? Where do we learn that faith must be complete to be genuine? Our own weak hearts say it to us often enough; and our lingering unbelief is only too ready to hiss into our ears the serpent's whisper, 'You are deceiving yourself; look at your doubts, your coldness, your forgetfulness: you have no faith at all.' To all such morbid thoughts, which only sap the strength of the spirit, and come from beneath, not from above, we have a right to oppose the first ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Mark • Alexander Maclaren

... her strength returned. All through the night we scoured between the hills: The moon went down behind us, and the stars Dropped after her; but long before I saw A planet blazing straight against our eyes, The road had softened, and the shadowy hills Had flattened out, and I could hear the hiss Of sand spurned backward by the flying mares.— Glory to God! I was at home again! The sun rose on us; far and near I saw The level Desert; sky met sand all round. We paused at midday by a palm-crowned well, And ate and slumbered. Somewhat, too, was said: The words have slipped my memory. That ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various

... Evangelical. When its crisis arrived, he was living by himself without any society of the kind that suited him (for the excitement of the Nonsense Club was sure to be followed by reaction); he had lost hiss love, his father, his home, and as it happened also a dear friend; his little patrimony was fast dwindling away; he must have despaired of success in his profession; and his outlook was altogether dark. It yielded to the remedies to which hypochondria usually yields, ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith

... get them to consider public selfishness as dishonorable a thing as we now consider private selfishness". If a man today crowds himself out of a theater, leaving behind him a trail of bruised women and children, the very newsboy in the street will hiss him when he gets to the door. Such a man will be despised by the public, and in his heart he will despise himself, for taking advantage of his strength to crush others. But if a man gets money or office by analogous processes, the world is inclined to admire the result and forgive the ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... into a keg of proper size for containing it, and let it ferment at the bung-hole; filling it up as it works out with some of the liquor reserved for that purpose. As soon as it ceases to hiss, stop it close with a cloth wrapped round the bung. A pint of white brandy for every gallon of the gooseberry wine may be added on bunging it up. At the end of four or five months it will probably be fine enough to bottle off. ...
— Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches • Eliza Leslie

... Hinderance malhelpo. Hindermost lasta. Hindoo Hindo. Hindrance malhelpo. Hindu Hindo. Hinge cxarniro. Hint proponeti. Hip kokso. Hippodrome hipodromo. Hippopotamus hipopotamo. Hire dungi. Hire, cost of salajro. Hireling salajrulo. His lia, sia. Hiss sibli. Historian historiskribanto. History historio. History, natural naturscienco. Hit frapi. Hit against ektusxegi. Hitch malhelpajxo. Hive abelujo. Ho! ho! Hoard amaso. Hoarfrost prujno. Hoarse ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... said "Hiss-ss!" and ran out and nipped the little pig's hind leg. The little pig squealed ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... Innumerable sheep of the Lord Christ have been fed on the wholesome pasture of the Divine Word in spite of those monstrous, tearing, ravenous wolves, the Pope and his followers. The enemy of God and man, the ancient serpent, may hiss and rage. Yes, the Roman antichrist in his frantic blusterings may bite off his own tongue, may fulminate all kinds of evils, bans, excommunications, wars, desolations, and burnings, as long and as much as he likes. But if we take refuge with the Lord God, what can this inane, worn-out man ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Crummles at Portsmouth, with the aid of Miss Snevelicci, and the Infant Phenomenon, lurid lightning was much in request to astonish the natives; and this was sufficiently well simulated by igniting, with a sudden flash and a hiss, highly inflammable spores of the Club Moss projected against burning tow within a hollow cone, producing weird ...
— Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure • William Thomas Fernie

... certainly a French spy, is somewhere about," said Mynheer Jacobus. "Peter haf seen him twice more, but he haf caught only glimpses. But you can trust Peter even as I do. His whole heart iss in the task I have set him. He wass born Dutch but hiss soul iss Iroquois! He iss by nature ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler

... shoot tiny white, five-pointed flames through the purple sky. The fireflies were beginning to cut long arcs of gold in the sooty dusk. The waves were coming up the low-tide beach with a long roar and retreating with a faint hiss. Afterwards floated on the air the music of the shingle, hundreds of pebbles pattering with liquid footsteps down the sand. Peals of laughter, the continuous bass roar of the men, an occasional uncertain soprano lilting ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore

... about the way to treat old friends." And all at once the mutter merged into a vindictive hiss: "Him with his airs and graces, his fine clothes and greasy manners, putting on the lah-de-dah over them that's stood by him when he hadn't a red and was glad to cadge drinks off spiggoties in hells ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance

... with an admiring glance at the pretty, fearless brunette and her strange companion. "They know at once whether people like them or not, and they govern themselves accordingly. I suppose it's instinct. When they see you're afraid of them, they spring and hiss; but when they see you take to them by nature, they make themselves perfectly at home in a moment. They don't wait to be asked. They've no false modesty. Well, then, you see," he went on, drawing imaginary lines with his ticket on the sketch he was ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen

... and eat grapes forever, without working for them; but when Walter looked up innocently and said, "then why didn't you stay there, Pietro?" Pietro would drop him as if he had been a red-hot potatoe, and hiss something in Italian from between his teeth, that poor little Walter could not begin to understand; but as he was a pretty sensible little boy, he always took himself off till Pietro felt better natured, and ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... scent the fumes! Are those real men or ghosts? The stillness spreads of Death abroad—down come the temple posts, Their molten bronze is coursing fast and joins with silver waves To leap with hiss of thousand snakes ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo

... said again. He was silent for a moment while a great green rocket rushed upwards with a hiss and burst in a shower of many-coloured stars. Then as they watched them fall he spoke very kindly and earnestly. "But it is worth while all the same—even though one may be turned back from Paradise. Remember—always remember—that it's something to have been there! ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... sea from the ship's prow, and broadening as they passed, and wrinkling and widening, were smoothed out again with a shake, and vanished. The foam flew up, churned by the tediously thudding wheels; white as milk, with a faint hiss it broke up into serpentine eddies, and then melted together again and vanished too, swallowed up ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev

... head about the cry of murder which is raised against me, and to go on my way in a consistent and undeterred fashion. Whether I shall be answerable for the scandal, or whether my opponents will entangle themselves in the scandal, will appear later. Meanwhile they can hiss and scribble as much as they please. In the course of the summer my "Faust" and "Dante" Symphonies will be published by Hartel, together with a couple of new Symphonic Poems. The "Faust Symphony" is ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated

... freely, when suddenly from the ranks there was the bright gleam of steel lower down than it should have been. A gasp broke from the breasts of company "A's" friends. The blue and white dropped disconsolately, while a few heartless ones who wore other colors attempted to hiss. Someone had dropped his bayonet. But with muscles unquivering, without a turned head, the company moved on as if nothing had happened, while one of the judges, an army officer, stepped into the wake of the boys and picked up the ...
— The Upward Path - A Reader For Colored Children • Various

... ten years, where they stole cents, their successors stole by thousands and tens of thousands; and, instead of flying from punishment, flaunt their crimes and their ill-gotten wealth in the face of the community, heedless either of the arm of the law, or the more potent hiss of public scorn. ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller

... were bursts of wild laughter, not merriment but excitement, accompanied by yells as the streams grew fiercer, a loud chorus of Kabadar! Sharbaz! ('Caution!' 'Well done!') was yelled to encourage the horses, and the boom and hiss of the Shayok made a wild accompaniment. Gyalpo, for whose legs of steel I longed, frolicked as usual, making mirthful lunges at his leader when the pair halted. Hassan Khan, in the deepest branch, shakily said to me, 'I not afraid, Mem Sahib.' During ...
— Among the Tibetans • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs Bishop)

... it only means that we still have a treat in store when the old boy begins to roar and growl and hiss so as to make us think that a whole menagerie has broken loose and is chasing us. In the meantime we can fix up that aerial so as to get ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... the august house of Barking prove unsound of foundation or capable of collapse! To hint at this, even as a remote possibility, was little short of blasphemous. Their amiable nephew, meanwhile, had regarded them as a flock of silly fat geese eminently fitted for plucking. He let them complacently hiss and cackle, congratulate themselves upon their worldly wisdom and conspicuous modernity, while, all the time, silently, diligently, relentlessly plucking. Now, awakening suddenly to the fact of their nudity, they were in a terrible taking; scandalised, ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet

... of martial music, moving down the Champ Elysees to the Place de la Concorde, was distributed thence over certain sections of the city agreed upon beforehand. Nothing that could be called a disturbance took place during the march; and though there was a hiss now and then and murmurings of discontent, yet the most noteworthy mutterings were directed against the defunct Empire. Indeed, I found everywhere that the national misfortunes were laid at Napoleon's door—he, by ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan

... who has ever taken part in one of those ghastly processions, and, at thirty yards interval, watched the dust-spots, at first promiscuous, gradually concentrating round him, and listened to the constant soft whine or nearer hiss of passing bullets, and seen men fall and plodded on still, solitary, waiting his turn, would look upon the maddest and bloodiest rush of old days as ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps

... despite as he stands before his victim and marks the utter unconsciousness of any offence with which his eyes meet his own. Such a look would blunt the very stiletto of a Corsican. What sweetness would there be in vengeance if the avenger, as he plunged the dagger in his victim's bosom, might not hiss in his ear, 'Remember!' As well find satisfaction in torturing an idiot or mutilating a corpse. I am not talking now of brutish fellows, who would kick a stock or stone which they stumbled over, but of men intelligent enough to understand what ...
— Dr. Heidenhoff's Process • Edward Bellamy

... longer felt like a Japanese. The sight of her countrymen in their drab monotonous thousands sickened her. The hiss and cackle of their incomprehensible tongue beat upon her brain with a deadly incessant sound, like raindrops to one who is impatiently awaiting ...
— Kimono • John Paris

... at once. Your observations are as true as they are severe. When we would harangue geese, we must condescend to hiss; but still, my dear Barnstaple, though you have fully proved to me that in a fashionable novel all plot is unnecessary, don't you think there ought to be a catastrophe, or sort of a kind of an end to the work, or the reader may ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... the provinces is become a tributary! She weepeth sore in the night and her tears are on her cheeks; Among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her: All her friends have dealt treacherously with her; they are become her enemies. All that pass by clap their hands at thee: They hiss and wag their head at the daughter of Jerusalem, saying, Is this the city that men called The perfection of beauty, The joy of the whole earth? All thine enemies have opened their mouth wide against thee: They ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman

... change from the fine, clear weather—frost rime settled everywhere, and for a time we had to stop. There was a weird stillness over all, and whenever the ship was moved amongst the ice-floes a curious hiss was heard; this sound is well known to all ice navigators: it is the sear of the floe against the greenheart sheathing which protects the little ship, and it is to the ice-master what the strange smell of the China Seas is to the far Eastern navigator, what the Mediterranean "cheesy odours" and ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans

... back to the pylon, and Menes put some fuel under a brass kettle. He blew the flame and soon the water was boiling. On the kettle was a perpendicular spout covered with a heavy stone. When the kettle began to hiss, Menes said, ...
— The Pharaoh and the Priest - An Historical Novel of Ancient Egypt • Boleslaw Prus

... be just under where I lay down to look over," he said to himself, and having plenty of room now he turned to look upward, and then stopped short as if turned to stone, for from somewhere just beyond where he stood came the soft hollow rush and hiss of shingle following a retiring wave, and with it a distant ...
— The Lost Middy - Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap • George Manville Fenn

... form in that fleet frail bark Is a comely Nemesis, Before whose menace 'tis good to mark The reptile dwellers in dens so dark Driven with growl and hiss. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, September 5, 1891 • Various

... instant there was fierce battle between the old forces and the new. Then, with his eyes upon his father, resuming that hiss that is proper only to ostlers, he continued ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... a hole in the bed of rocks, about five feet in diameter, and slightly funnel-shaped at the orifice. Standing upon the edge, one can see the water boiling up and whirling over about twenty feet below. A hollow, growling noise is heard, varied by an occasional hiss and rush, as if the contents were struggling to get out. It emits hot vapors, and a slight smell of sulphur; otherwise it maintains rather a peaceful aspect, considering the infernal temper it gets ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... pleasures wait, and joys for ever new. But cruel virgins meet severer fates; Expell'd and exil'd from the blissful seats, To dismal realms, and regions void of peace, Where furies ever howl, and serpents hiss. O'er the sad plains perpetual tempests sigh, And pois'nous vapours, black'ning all the sky, With livid hue the fairest face o'ercast, And every beauty withers at the blast: Where e'er they fly their lover's ghosts pursue, Inflicting all those ills which once they knew; Vexation, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... Israfil call them to judgment: And none shall have power To turn aside, this way or that; And their voices will sink To silence, except for the sounding Of a noise, like the noise on the brink Of the sea when its stones Are dragged with a clatter and hiss Down the shore, in the wild breakers' roar! The sound of their woe ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner

... stern was now under water. She had a pronounced list to starboard. Dense volumes of smoke and steam, pouring from her funnels and hatchways, showed that the water had already invaded her boiler-room. Above the hiss of the scalding vapour and the rush of escaping air, could be heard the terrified neighing of a dozen or more wounded horses, for whom no escape ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman

... silence brooded over the landscape, broken now and again by a noise like the crackling of thorns under a pot. As we took cover behind a wall of ruined houses we heard a sinister hiss, but whence it came or what invisible trajectory it traced through the leaden skies overhead neither of us could tell. Silence again fell like a mist upon the land; not a bird sang, not a twig moved. The winter sun was ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan

... almost to vociferation. Each thane dead or alive joined his voice—but this was only "confusion worse confounded"—if he could have spoken the amazed prince might with great justice have said, "So thanks to all at once"—but his utterance was gone "vox faucibus haesit"—a hiss presently broke out in the pit, the clamor soon became general, and the curtain went down, amid a ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... a terre!" shout the men. The boats are turned towards the shore, and the bending oars creak and groan as they pull swiftly on. Hiss! whir! the gale bursts forth, dashing clouds of spray into the air, twisting and curling the foaming water in its fury. The thunder crashes with fearful noise, and the lightning gleams in fitful lurid streaks across the inky sky. Presently ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... huge hills of cinders and spoil from the mines; the few trees are stunted and blasted; no birds are to be seen, except a few smoky sparrows; and for miles on miles a black waste spreads around, where furnaces continually smoke, steam-engines thud and hiss, and long chains clank, while blind gin-horses walk their doleful round. From time to time you pass a cluster of deserted roofless cottages of dingiest brick, half-swallowed up in sinking pits or inclining to every ...
— Rides on Railways • Samuel Sidney

... the earth seemed as if it mourned for the approaching calamity, as well as for that which had been already felt. The whole country, in fact, was weltering and surging with the wet formed by the incessant overflow of rivers, while the falling cataracts, joined to a low monotonous hiss, or what the Scotch term sugh, poured their faint but dismal murmurs on the gloomy ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton

... his footsteps, already faint, to the castle, where he perched forlornly on a high rock. A little later, he heard for he could not see, the low hiss and gurgle of the coming tide. Roger was a big, strong, brave boy, but at the sound, he could not suppress a few tears, and they were not ...
— The Spanish Chest • Edna A. Brown

... his success, which he related, overjoyed at having wrought the ruin of mankind and revenged himself on God by so small a thing as the eating of an apple. As he concluded and stood waiting their applause, he heard a universal hiss, and saw himself surrounded by serpents, and himself changing into an enormous dragon. The great hall was filled with the monsters, scorpions, asps, hydras, and those who stood waiting without with applause ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... are different kinds of shadows. The blind ones are the shadows of things. These are the tame shadows— they love to play on the wall with you and follow you about like cats and dogs. Sometimes they hiss at you softly like snakes that do not bite, or swish like women's dresses, but if you poke a candle at them they pull in their ...
— Sun-Up and Other Poems • Lola Ridge

... was the next and last witness summoned. At the sound of her name a low, ominous hiss was heard—sternly repressed at once ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming

... the difference. Mr. Bass once, with his eyes cautiously directed towards the ground, stepped over one which was lying asleep among some black sticks, and would have passed on without observing it, had not its rustling and loud hiss attracted his ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins

... declarations; and in a few minutes the "Betsy," a mass of flame, was drifting across the harbor to the Charlestown beach. There she blazed away, while the crowd watched the bonfire from the dock, until the last timbers of the ship fell with a hiss into the black waters, and all ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... the house," his lordship had replied. "But not over the back part of the house?" His lordship agreed. "The servants' quarters, probably?" His lordship nodded. The Coroner had said: "The wire-netting does not extend over the servants' quarters," in a very even voice. A faint hiss in court had been extinguished by the sharp glare of the Coroner's eyes. His lordship, a thin, antique figure, in a long cloak that none but himself would have ventured to wear, had ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett

... the car! Run!" He set off, down the slope, stumbling through the darkness. He could hear soldiers behind him, soldiers running and falling. A body collided against him and he struck out. Someplace behind him there was a hiss, and a section of the slope went up in flames. ...
— The Crystal Crypt • Philip Kindred Dick

... Jock and me shall be doin' o't; He 'll thrash, and I 'll toil on the fields in the spring, And turn up the soil at the plowin' o't. And whan the wee flow'rets begin then to blaw, The lavrock, the peasweep, and skirlin' pickmaw, Shall hiss the bleak winter to Lapland awa, Then we 'll ply the blythe hours at ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... with little spots and splashes of subdued red and green-blue light, and the downward orange glow of the high lamps—like an enchanted dream-street peopled by countless moving shapes, which only came to earth-reality when seen close to. The painter drew his breath in with a hiss. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... tensing trigger finger and pushed hard against the floor. His head rolled clear but the bullet tore through his shoulder. Coleman didn't have a chance for a second shot, there was a fizzling hiss from the tank and the riot ports released a flood of tear gas. The stricken men never saw the gas-masked police that ...
— The Velvet Glove • Harry Harrison

... lever which opened the valve, and heard the hiss of the water when it shot from the nozzle and hit the wheel, and watched the belt, and shaft, and big fly-wheel speed up until the spokes were a blur and the breeze it created lifted his hair, it was the happiest moment of his life. When he saw the thread of carbon filament in the glass ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... of flame was creeping through the joining of the logs at one end of the cabin, and the logs where the bunk had been were beginning to crackle and hiss ominously. The smoke had grown thicker, and the atmosphere was pungent and choking in its quality. He left her side for a moment, and returned with ...
— A Mating in the Wilds • Ottwell Binns

... to you. I reckon you have something up your sleeve that will surprise us, eh?" The debonair Congressman from the Empire State was quite equal to the occasion. He seemed primed and ready, and needed no further urging. There was another hiss of soda, the clink of glasses, and with a prolonged sigh of ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... metallic voice sank to a hiss. "I employ no force. You shall yield to me your heart as a love offering. Of such motives as jealousy and revenge you know me incapable. What I do, I do with a purpose. That compassion of yours shall be a lever to cast you into my arms. ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer

... tempted to turn him loose. The "major-domo" had singled out Sponsilier and was trying issues with him, Bob Quirk was dropping them right and left, when the deposed commandant sprang upon a table, and in a voice like the hiss of an adder, commanded peace, and the ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams

... every side, and it never occurred to us to be afraid. I used to take sun-baths and do calisthenics in a certain pleasant nook among azalea and calcanthus, the rattles whizzing on every side like spinning- wheels, and the combined hiss or buzz rising louder and angrier at any sudden movement; but I was never in the least impressed, nor ever attacked. It was only towards the end of our stay, that a man down at Calistoga, who was expatiating on the terrifying nature ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... drink. It would be beneath his professional dignity as a good garcon de cafe. The two sous you have given him as a pourboire, he is well satisfied with, and expresses his contentment in a "merci, monsieur, merci," the final syllable ending in a little hiss, prolonged in proportion to his satisfaction. After this just formality, you will find him ready to see the point of a joke or discuss the current topics of the day. He is intelligent, independent, ...
— The Real Latin Quarter • F. Berkeley Smith

... memory. Again and again the oft-answered and exploded calumnies are revived afresh to throw dishonor on his cause. Even while the free peoples of the earth are making these grateful acknowledgments of the priceless boon that has come to them through his life and labors, press and platform hiss with stale vituperations from the old enemy. And a puling Churchism outside of Rome takes an ill pleasure in following after her to gather and retail ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss

... of a tree. hist, hush! bowl, a vessel. hissed, did hiss. boll, a pod. paws, the feet of beasts. nose, part of the face. pause, a stop. knows, does know. faun, a sylvan god. mote, a particle. fawn, a young deer. moat, a ditch. pride, vanity. toled, allured. pried, did pry. told, did tell. ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... he lay down close to the end of the train right beneath the open window, took a match from the box, struck it, and, as it burst into flame, touched the powder, which began to burn along the zigzag train with a peculiar rushing hiss. ...
— The Black Bar • George Manville Fenn

... the rope remained as when the teams had first dropped. Then, of a sudden, Dale gave a hiss and up came his men, to haul in on the rope several inches and then drop ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield

... the roar of the flames came the frequent crashes of falling trees, and the hiss of blazing embers as they fell into the water. The heat was terrific, while at times the smoke was so dense and suffocating that the men had the greatest difficulty to breathe. Elephants, bush-cows, rhinoceri and swarms of smaller animals, stampeded by the flames, plunged ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman

... energising objects men pursue,' The Lord knows what is writ by Lord knows who. 'A modest Monologue you here survey,' Hiss'd from the theatre the 'other ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore



Words linked to "Hiss" :   talk, emit, sibilation, condemn, mouth, hushing, whoosh, verbalise, cry, shout, raspberry, hissing, razz, Bronx cheer, bird, hoot, verbalize, let out, outcry, boo, snort, sibilate, fizzle, utter, applaud, razzing, hisser, sizz, call



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