Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb With a hissing or sibilant sound.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From sibilant +‎ -ly.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word sibilantly.

Examples

  • Their breath came and went sibilantly, and the darkness was alive with the excitement they thought themselves too warrior-like to utter.

    In The Time Of Light dj barber 2010

  • There was a slight breeze blowing, a wispy, barely perceptible current of air that animated the blue-lit grass stalks and whispered sibilantly.

    Baby Games Chelsea White 2010

  • A voice will whisper sibilantly from a dark corner: We hates they others, Master, we hates them, we hates them.

    Who Will Follow John Reid Out of the Cabinet? 2007

  • Tsedraiter: the Tse to be pronounced sibilantly, with a sort of lisping hiss: Tsss, Tsss; the vowel sound somewhere between a sir and a sid: Tsssirdraiter/Tsssidraiter; the second and third syllables to rhyme with hater.

    Kalooki Nights Howard Jacobson 2006

  • "This lies between you and me," he said sibilantly.

    The Moon of Skulls Howard, Robert E. 2005

  • Yes -- I had heard it, lying half-waking in the bunks or on the floor -- whispered sibilantly by Yun Shatu or by Hassim or by Yussef Ali, the Moor, muttered in their low-voiced conversations and mingled always with words I could not understand.

    The Moon of Skulls Howard, Robert E. 2005

  • There was no audible quarreling among the cabmen, and when you called a cab it was useless to cry “Heigh!” or shake your umbrella; you made play with your thumb and finger in the air and sibilantly whispered; otherwise the cabman ignored you and went on reading his newspaper.

    Familiar Spanish Travels 2004

  • For a moment or two he remains silent as sibilantly he purses his lips and drinks some saffron-coloured tea from the saucer which the splayed fingers of his right hand are balancing on their tips.

    Through Russia 2003

  • Love – making is going on sibilantly, seductively in the darker places of the room behind thick green curtains.

    The Death of the Moth, and other essays 2002

  • As if a hundred Hannahs had all gotten together and murmured sibilantly, The First Time.

    Night World No. 2 L.J. SMITH 1997

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • "Insssectsss that can foretell the future? Sssoundss unlikely!" Tom said sibilantly.

    February 24, 2007