Hiss vs Sibilance - What's the difference?

hiss | sibilance |


As nouns the difference between hiss and sibilance

is that hiss is a high-pitched sound made by a snake, cat, escaping steam, etc while sibilance is the quality of being sibilant: a hissing quality.

As a verb hiss

is to make a hissing sound.

hiss

English

Noun

(es)
  • A high-pitched sound made by a snake, cat, escaping steam, etc.
  • An expression of disapproval made to sound like the noise of a snake.

    • Verb

  • To make a hissing sound.
    • As I started to poke it, the snake hissed at me.
    The arrow hissed through the air.
  • * Wordsworth
    • Shod with steel, / We hissed along the polished ice.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=December 14 , author=John Elkington , title=John Elkington , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=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."}}
  • To condemn or express contempt for by hissing.
  • * Bible, Ezekiel xxvii. 36
    • The merchants among the people shall hiss at thee.
  • * Shakespeare
    • if the tag-rag people did not clap him and hiss him, according as he pleased and displeased them
  • To utter with a hissing sound.
  • * Tennyson
    • the long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise

    sibilance

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The quality of being sibilant: a hissing quality.
  • * 2000 , Elaine A. Clark, There's Money Where Your Mouth Is: An Insider's Guide to a Career in Voice-Overs , Second Edition, Back Stage Books, ISBN 978-0-8230-7702-1, page 24:
    • The following exercises help combat sibilance , plosives, lazy tongue, and mouth problems.
  • * 2006 , Barbara Alysen, Electronic Reporter: Broadcast Journalism in Australia , Second Edition, University of New south Wales Press, ISBN 978-0-86840-495-0, page 118:
    • A string of words beginning with ‘s’ will cause sibilance .
  • * 2009 , Jean Ann Wright and M. J. Lallo, Voice-Over for Animation , Elsevier, ISBN 978-0-240-81015-7, page 28:
    • Work to control the sibilance of your s sounds.
  • * 2012 , Michael Zager, Music Production: For Producers, Composers, Arrangers, and Students , Second Edition, Scarecrow Press, ISBN 978-0-8108-8202-7, page 277:
    • Most often sending the vocal through a de-esser will either eliminate the sibilance or greatly reduce its sound.