Definition of "hiss"
hiss
noun
plural hisses
A sibilant sound, such as that made by a snake or escaping steam; an unvoiced fricative.
Quotations
Their music frightful as the serpent’s hiss,And boding screech-owls make the concert full!
1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]
A hundred Reeds, of a prodigious Growth,Scarce made a Pipe, proportion’d to his Mouth:Which, when he gave it Wind, the Rocks around,And watry Plains, the dreadful Hiss resound.
1717, John Dryden [et al.], “Book 13. [The Story of Acis, Polyphemus and Galatea.]”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
An expression of disapproval made using such a sound.
Quotations
[…] in open disputations ye haue bene openly conuict, ye haue bene openly driuen out of the schole with hisses […]
1563 March 30, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], book V, Part 2, The Oration of Byshop Brookes in closing vp this examination agaynst Doctour Cranmer Archbishop of Caunterbury,, page
Once or twice she was encored five and six times in succession, and received with hisses when she appeared, and discharged with hisses and laughter when she had finished—then instantly encored and insulted again!
1869, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXIX, in The Innocents Abroad, or The New Pilgrims’ Progress; […], Hartford, Conn.: American Publishing Company. […]
verb
third-person singular simple present hisses, present participle hissing, simple past and past participle hissed
(intransitive) To make a hissing sound.
Quotations
And in his wound the seared blood did make a gréeuous sound, As when a peece of stéele red who tane vp with tongs is drownd In water by the smith, it spirts and hisseth in the trowgh.
1567, Ovid, “The Twelfth Booke”, in Arthur Golding, transl., The XV. Bookes of P. Ouidius Naso, Entytuled Metamorphosis, […], London: […] Willyam Seres […], folio 152, recto
(transitive, intransitive) To condemn or express contempt (for someone or something) by hissing.
Quotations
If the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.
1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]
VVherefore this Religious affection vvhich nature has implanted, and as ſtrongly rooted in Man as the feare of death or the love of vvomen, vvould be the moſt enormous ſlip or bungle ſhe could commit, ſo that ſhe vvould ſo ſhamefully faile in the laſt Act, in this contrivance of the nature of Man, that inſtead of a Plaudite ſhe vvould deſerve to be hiſſed off the Stage.
1653, Henry More, chapter XII, in An Antidote against Atheisme, or An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man, whether There Be Not a God, London: […] Roger Daniel, […], book I, page 102
(transitive) To utter (something) with a hissing sound.
Quotations
It turns out that the driver of the red Ferrari that caused the crash wasn't, as I first guessed, a youngster, but a 60-year-old. Clearly, he had energy to spare, which was more than could be said about a panel I listened to around the same time as the crash. Indeed, someone hissed in my ear during a First Magazine awards ceremony in London's imposing Marlborough House on 7 December: "What we need is more old white men on the stage."
2011 December 14, John Elkington, “John Elkington”, in The Guardian
(intransitive) To move with a hissing sound.
Quotations
All the preceding afternoon and night heavy thunderstorms had hissed down upon the meads, and washed some of the hay into the river […]
1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXIII, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume II, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], phase the third (The Rally), page 20