hushaby
hushaby interjection: hush and be still; a lull to sleep.
Interjection
- 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)
- 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)
- To lull to sleep by saying "hushaby".
Forms of hushaby
| Interjection | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | hush-a-bye |
| Noun | |
| plural | hushabies |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | hushabies |
| present participle | hushabying |
| past participle | hushabied |
| past | hushabied |
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
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.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “hushaby.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hushaby. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
