hist
/hɪst/
hist interjection: an utterance used to discreetly attract someone's attention. Also the abbreviation of history.
Interjection
- An utterance used to discreetly attract someone's attention.
- Synonyms:
- psst
- An injunction to be silent and/or to pay attention to what is being said or can be heard.
- "My worthy Nelly! I am greatly rejoiced to find it is no other than thee. Hist! child, hist! Should Ishmael gain a knowledge of our plans, he would not hesitate to cast us both from this rock, upon the plain beneath. Hist! Nelly, hist!"1827, James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie: Chapter XI
- Hist! hist! thou canst not say / Thou hearest not now Baldazzar?,1850, Edgar Allan Poe, Scenes from "Politian", 2009 [1902], Charles F. Richardson (editor), The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 1: Poems, page 87
Noun (1)
hist (plural hists)
- An instance of an exclamation attracting attention or injunction to be silent.
- 'A tinker!' repeated Sir Hugh, quite loud, in defiance of the signs and hists! hists! of Camilla, 'good lack! that's a person I should never have thought of!'1796, Fanny Burney, Camilla, unnumbered page
Noun (2) capitalized: Hist
Hist
- History (in journal titles such as "J Hist Neurosci" - "Journal of the History of Neuroscience").
Also used as
hist is also the abbreviation of history.
hist is also the pronunciation spelling of hoist.
Synonyms of hist
Forms of hist
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | hists |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | hists |
| present participle | histing |
| past participle | histed |
| past | histed |
Words formed from hist
Words that rhyme with hist
43 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- frist
- insist
- Liszt
- piste
- tryst
- agist
- consist
- dismissed
- encyst
- pissed
- sist
- tier list
- trist
- whist
- wrist
- absist
- atwist
- bist
- cist
- coexist
- contrist
- cyst
- delist
- demist
- desist
- dissed
- dream list
- exist
- fair list
- get one's knickers in a twist
- glissed
- hissed
- is't
- ist
- kissed
- missed
- rankist
- schist
- triste
- unlist
- ventriloquist
- wist
- xyst
Questions about hist
- What does hist mean?
- Hist means an utterance used to discreetly attract someone's attention.
- What part of speech is hist?
- Hist can be an interjection or a noun.
- How do you pronounce hist?
- Hist is pronounced /hɪst/.
Words near hist in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: hist (page history and authors); Hist (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-hist.wav.
Cite this entry: “hist.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hist. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.