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Sigh vs Hiss - What's the difference?

sigh | hiss | Related terms |

In intransitive terms the difference between sigh and hiss

is that sigh is to make a sound like sighing while hiss is to make a hissing sound.

In transitive terms the difference between sigh and hiss

is that sigh is to express by sighs; to utter in or with sighs while hiss is to utter with a hissing sound.

As an interjection sigh

is an expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts.

sigh

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • A deep and prolonged audible inspiration or respiration of air, as when fatigued, frustrated, grieved, or relieved; the act of sighing.
  • Figuratively, a manifestation of grief; a lament.
  • (Cockney rhyming slang) A person who is bored.
  • Verb

    (en verb)
  • To inhale a larger quantity of air than usual, and immediately expel it; to make a deep single audible respiration, especially as the result or involuntary expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=5 citation , passage=A waiter brought his aperitif, which was a small scotch and soda, and as he sipped it gratefully he sighed .
       ‘Civilized,’ he said to Mr. Campion. ‘Humanizing.’ […] ‘Cigars and summer days and women in big hats with swansdown face-powder, that's what it reminds me of.’}}
  • To lament; to grieve.
  • * Bible, Mark viii. 12
  • He sighed deeply in his spirit.
  • To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
  • To experience an emotion associated with sighing.
  • To make a sound like sighing.
  • * Coleridge
  • And the coming wind did roar more loud, / And the sails did sigh like sedge.
  • * Tennyson
  • The winter winds are wearily sighing .
  • To exhale (the breath) in sighs.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Never man sighed truer breath.
  • To express by sighs; to utter in or with sighs.
  • * Shakespeare
  • They sighed forth proverbs.
  • * Hoole
  • The gentle swain sighs back her grief.
  • (archaic) To utter sighs over; to lament or mourn over.
  • * Prior
  • Ages to come, and men unborn, / Shall bless her name, and sigh her fate.

    Interjection

    (en interjection)
  • An expression of fatigue, exhaustion, grief, sorrow, frustration, or the like, often used in casual written contexts.
  • Sigh , I'm so bored at work today.

    Anagrams

    *

    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