Word.ws English Dictionary

hushaby

hushaby interjection: hush and be still; a lull to sleep.

Interjection

  1. (archaic) hush and be still; a lull to sleep
    • Hush-a-by, baby, upon the tree-top; / When the wind blows the cradle will rock; / When the bough breaks the cradle will fall; / Down will come cradle and baby and all.1805, Songs for the Nursery, page 5
    • The night is fair, and the waves are still,
      And the wind is singing to you and to me
      In this lowly home beside the sea —
      Hushaby, sweet my own!1892. Eugene Field. Hushaby Sweet my Own. In With Trumpet and Drum. page 106 http://books.google.com/books?id=FNQMAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA106&dq=hushaby&ei=W3AuR-2nAoKotgPstI28CQ

Noun

hushaby (plural hushabies)

  1. A lullaby used to soothe babies to sleep.
    • The moaning of their voices seemed to me to be like what is understood in Scotland by a "sugh," and might very well have passed for a hushaby, when the nurse had nearly succeeded in murmuring herself to sleep, as well as her infant.1832, Thomas Skinner, Excursions in India

Verb

hushaby (third-person singular simple present hushabies, present participle hushabying, simple past and past participle hushabied)

  1. (archaic, transitive) To lull to sleep by saying "hushaby".

Forms of hushaby

Interjection
alternative formhush-a-bye
Noun
pluralhushabies
Verb
third-person singular presenthushabies
present participlehushabying
past participlehushabied
pasthushabied

Origin of hushaby

Blend of hush + lullaby or hush + -a- (connective interfix) + by (“goodbye, as in bye-bye”).

Questions about hushaby

What does hushaby mean?
Hushaby means hush and be still; a lull to sleep.
What part of speech is hushaby?
Hushaby can be an interjection, a noun or a verb.

Words near hushaby in the dictionary

  1. hush-up
  2. hush-ups
  3. hushabied
  4. hushabies
  5. hushable
  6. hushaby
  7. hushabye
  8. hushabying
  9. hushed
  10. hushed down
  11. hushed one's mouth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hushaby (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.

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