whisht

• wheesht, weesht
• whish
• whist

From Middle English qwyst, whisht, whist, imitative, though perhaps influenced by other verbs in wh- used in the imperative or by hust (adjective).^[1]

whisht

1. (Ireland; British, especially Scotland, Northumbria) Shush, silence, be quiet!
   • 1952, Neville Shute, chapter 9, in The Far Country‎^[1], London: Heinemann:

     “You must have loved him very much,” she said.
     “Whisht,” said the old woman, “there’s a word that you must never use until there's marrying between you […] ”

2. A sound often used to calm livestock, cattle, sheep etc.

• wisht

• Frank Graham, editor (1987), “WHISHT”, in The New Geordie Dictionary, Rothbury, Northumberland: Butler Publishing, →ISBN.

• wheesht

From Scottish Gaelic èist (“listen, harken”).

whisht

1. a call for silence, hush!
   • 1883, Margaret Oliphant, It was a Lover and his Lass‎^[2], page 49:

     Whisht, bairns! mind it’s the Sabbath day.

     Hush, children! Remember that it’s the Sabbath day.

whisht (third-person singular simple present whishts, present participle whishtin, simple past whishtit, past participle whishtit)

1. to call for silence, to say whisht
2. (transitive) to silence (someone)
3. (intransitive) to be silent
   • 1819, Walter Scott, The Bride of Lammermoor:

     Whisht, sir!—whisht, and let me speak just ae word that I couldna say afore folk

     Hush, sir! Be silent and let me say just one thing that I could not say in front of other people

whisht (plural whishts)

1. (usually negative) a slight sound, a whisper
   • 1880, R.M. Ballantyne, “The Thorogood family”, in Life & Work‎^[3], page 80:

     I’ll no make a whisht. Only let me bide near till him.

     I won’t make a whisper, if you’ll just let me wait near him.

2. (rare, poetic) silence

• keep one's whisht (“to hold one's tongue”)

whisht (not comparable)

1. (archaic) hushed, quiet

• “Whisht, interj., v., n., adj.”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.