Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use hiss in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Hiss means a sibilant sound, such as that made by a snake or escaping steam; an unvoiced fricative. Example: “As I started to poke it, the snake hissed at me.”

Examples of hiss by meaning

nounA sibilant sound, such as that made by a snake or escaping steam; an unvoiced fricative.

  • Her voice was a hiss, like gas escaping from a bottle of soda.1951, William Styron, chapter 6, in Lie Down in Darkness, New York: Vintage, published 1992, page 292

nounAn expression of disapproval made using such a sound.

  • Like a moustachioed pantomime villain relishing boos and hisses from the audience, Trump is oblivious to warnings and protestations from the sane world and simply contemptuous of the lickspittle mob desperately hoping to go unnoticed.2026 January 24, Michael Pascoe, “America’s mighty economic power has feet of clay”, in Michael West Media

verbTo make a hiss, a sibilant sound of air escaping.

  • As I started to poke it, the snake hissed at me.
  • The poor cat hissed as it backed away from the approaching man.
  • The frying pan hissed and sizzled as Ishvar gently slid ping-pong sized balls into the glistening oil.1995, Rohinton Mistry, chapter 10, in A Fine Balance, Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, page 487

verbTo call someone by hissing.

  • I stepped out of my tent in Marrakech one night to get a bar of candy and caught your dose of clap when that Wac I never even saw before hissed me into the bushes.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 172

verbTo condemn or express contempt (for someone or something) by hissing.

  • The crowd booed and hissed her off the stage.
  • How well I remember, her stepmother told her, the days when we Wagnerians used to hiss old Brahms—O for the rapturous rebellious days of youth.1961, Walker Percy, The Moviegoer, New York: Ivy Books, published 1988, Part 1, Chapter 4, p. 38

verbTo utter (something) with a hissing sound.

  • 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."2011 December 14, John Elkington, “John Elkington”, in The Guardian

verbTo move with a hissing sound.

  • The arrow hissed through the air.
  • Ennis del Mar wakes before five, wind rocking the trailer, hissing in around the aluminum door and window frames.1997, Annie Proulx, “Brokeback Mountain”, in Close Range: Brokeback Mountain and Other Stories, London: Harper Perennial, published 2005...

verbTo emit or eject (something) with a hissing sound.

  • The man in white pyjamas hissed soda into his glass.1938, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, London: Heinemann, Part 2, Chapter 1, p. 72
  • The radiator bubbled and hissed steam.1939, John Steinbeck, chapter 26, in The Grapes of Wrath, New York: Viking, page 500
  • He hissed air intently through a gap in his upper teeth.1976, Ira Levin, The Boys from Brazil, New York: Dell, published 1977, Part 1, p. 16

More sentences with hiss

  • Steam hissed from the old iron radiator.From the entry radiator
  • The angry cat hissed and puffed up its fur.From the entry puff up
  • The pressure canner had begun to hiss, steam mounting behind a pin-size hole in the top.2017, Jennifer Egan, Manhattan Beach, Corsair, page 198. From the entry pressure canner
  • Fire hissed; rain boiled; steam turned back to rain and re-fell.2016, John Timmis, Deathling of Dorn. From the entry refall
  • These hosen have saggy butt.” “Don't touch yourself,” Paulo hissed, slapping Jerome's hand away.2014, Karen Chance, Masks. From the entry hosen
  • Badger clenched my hand in his and pulled me forward, hissing under his breath, “Don't stare.2014, Gwen Gardner, “Gertrude's Garden”, in Second Death [Indigo Eady: Afterlife Novella Series; book 1], Los Gatos, Calif.: G. Gardner…. From the entry three-fisted
  • "There's hundreds of them out there!" he hissed "And they've got a battering ram!2011, Alicia L. Wright, “Ragnarok”, in Eggs, Butter, Sugar and Disaster, Coulsdon, Croydon: Tannbourne, →ISBN, page 233. From the entry it's not over 'til the fat lady sings
  • A train idled on the main track, the engine hissing as it waited for the crew change.2009, Sheldon Russell, The Yard Dog, New York, N.Y.: Minotaur Books, →ISBN, page 210. From the entry take
  • With a mortified hiss and yowl he clomped with bedraggled hauteur below decks.2003, June Kant, “Castaway”, in Jan Fook, Susan Hawthorne, Renate Klein, editors, Cat Tales: The Meaning of Cats in Women's Lives, North…. From the entry clomp
  • “Oh, way to get us busted, Jimmy,” Curt hissed under his breath.2001, Joshua Nedelman, The Garden of Eastern, page 36. From the entry way
  • When Keanu Reeves falls apart, you just want to hiss "Ooh, get you!"1998 January 16, “Film: Dancing with the devil”, in The Independent, London, England. From the entry get you
  • "Thee's a right rotten skinflint, Barnaby," Victoria hissed at her husband.1993, James Clavell, James Clavell’s Gai-Jin: A Novel of Japan, New York, N.Y.: Delacorte Press, →ISBN, pages 265–266. From the entry titfer
  • It swiveled about to face Kerin, scattering sand; it opened fangful jaws and hissed like a kettle.1989, L. Sprague de Camp, The Honorable Barbarian, page 45. From the entry fangful
  • The recorder blicked off, and the tape hissed to the end of the reel in silence.1988, Sheila Radley, The chief inspector's daughter, page 171. From the entry blick
  • By the 'hissing snake' Spenser presumably means the scorpion sent by Diana that killed Orion.1983, Douglas Brooks-Davies, The Mercurian Monarch: magical politics from Spenser to Pope, page 31. From the entry stellify
  • In her hand, the haunch of an addax, still hissing from the spit.1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin 2006, page 53. From the entry addax
  • "It is shaped," he hissed at Ford, with his brow savagely furrowed, "like a policeman."1982, Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, page 19. From the entry savagely
  • A green light was flickering in his bulging eyes. ‘Masster, masster!’ he hissed. ‘Wicked!1954 November 11, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “The Forbidden Pool”, in The Two Towers: Being the Second Part of The Lord of the…. From the entry tricksy
  • The milk hissed and pingled - or Phil's tongue hissed and pingled.1930, The Windsor Magazine: An Illustrated Monthly for Men and Women, page 493. From the entry pingle
  • From the great inland lake behind us came the hissing and the screaming of countless saurians.1918 September–November, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “The Land That Time Forgot”, in The Blue Book Magazine, Chicago, Ill.: Story-press Corp.…. From the entry saurian
  • The words came with a fierce hissing indrawing of the speaker's breath.1906, Fred M. White, The Slave of Silence. From the entry indrawing
  • I feels th' coal scrunge as I come down an' the exhaust steam hisses as we strikes.1906, Richard Hayes Barry, Sandy from the Sierras, page 172. From the entry scrunge
  • He practically hisses at the imperious dragon queen.2017 July 23, Brandon Nowalk, “The great game begins with a bang on Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club. From the entry hard truth
  • Boo, hiss, yuck, vom; cute kids belong at home and in soft-play centres, they have no place on stages.2016 January 9, Sam Wollaston, “The Voice review – nonsense with laughs”, in The Guardian. From the entry vom
  • Thea could almost hiss out the name.2015, Cathy Elliott, A Stitch in Crime. From the entry hissable
  • The radiators thumped with steaming water, and a long stream of hissing air sounded miserably through the valves.2015, Thomas O'Malley, Douglas Graham Purdy, Serpents in the Cold, New York, N.Y. […]: Mulholland Books, →ISBN, page 81. From the entry mercy flush

Meaning of hiss

  1. noun A sibilant sound, such as that made by a snake or escaping steam; an unvoiced fricative.
  2. noun An expression of disapproval made using such a sound.
  3. verb To make a hiss, a sibilant sound of air escaping.

Full definition of hiss

Questions about hiss in a sentence

How do you use hiss in a sentence?
Hiss is used as a noun and verb. For example: “As I started to poke it, the snake hissed at me.”
What is a short sentence with hiss?
“The arrow hissed through the air.”
What does hiss mean?
Hiss means a sibilant sound, such as that made by a snake or escaping steam; an unvoiced fricative.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hiss (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use hiss in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/hiss. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.