hist

• IPA^(key): /hɪst/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪst

hist

1. (dated) An utterance used to discreetly attract someone's attention.
2. (dated) An injunction to be silent and/or to pay attention to what is being said or can be heard.
   • 1827, James Fenimore Cooper, The Prairie: Chapter XI:

     "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!"

   • 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,

     Hist! hist! thou canst not say / Thou hearest not now Baldazzar?,

   • 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Chapter 99”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:

     There’s a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist—hark! By Jove, I have it!

• (utterance used to attract someone's attention): psst, hey, yo; see also Thesaurus:hey
• (injunction to be quiet): hush, shh, shush, whist
• (injunction to pay attention): hark

hist (plural hists)

1. (dated) An instance of an exclamation attracting attention or injunction to be silent.
   • 1796, Fanny Burney, Camilla, unnumbered page:

     '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!'

hist (uncountable)

1. Abbreviation of history.

hist (third-person singular simple present hists, present participle histing, simple past and past participle histed)

1. (US) Pronunciation spelling of hoist.
   • 1952, R. A. Atkinson, Uncle Aaron Peddles a Possum, 2010 [1976], J. Mason Brewer (editor), Dog Ghosts and The Word on the Brazos (Combined edition), page 30,

     When he spy de train a-comin' 'roun' de curve, he hists de hankershuf way up ovuh his haid for hit to stop, an' when de engineer rech de spot whar Unkuh Aaron stannin', he jumps down outen his seat to de groun' an asts Unkuh Aaron de why he stop de train.

• HITs, This, Tish, hits, iths, shit, sith, this, tish

• fest

From Middle English fist, fest, from Old English fȳst, from Proto-West Germanic *fūsti.

• IPA^(key): /hɪst/, /ɸɛst/

hist

1. fist

• histfullès

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828) William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, published 1867, page 46