whoosh

English

Alternative forms

• woosh

Etymology

Of imitative origin

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʍʊʃ/, /wʊʃ/, /ʍuːʃ/, /wuːʃ/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

  Rhymes: -ʊʃ, -uːʃ

Noun

whoosh (plural whooshes)

1. A breathy sound like that of an object passing at high speed.
   • 2012, John Branch, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     The snow burst through the trees with no warning but a last-second whoosh of sound, a two-story wall of white and Chris Rudolph’s piercing cry: “Avalanche! Elyse!”

2. (MLE, slang) A homicide by shooting.
3. (MLE, slang) A gun.

Translations

breathy sound

• Dutch: gesuis (nl), geruis (nl), gesis (nl)
• Finnish: humahdus (fi), suhahdus (fi)
• French: sifflement (fr)

Verb

whoosh (third-person singular simple present whooshes, present participle whooshing, simple past and past participle whooshed)

1. (intransitive) To make a breathy sound like a whoosh or extrude with such a sound.
2. (transitive, intransitive) To pass by quickly and more or less close or away.
   1. (intransitive, figuratively) To happen while bypassing someone's detailed awareness, to have someone miss the point.
3. (transitive) To cause to pass quickly.
   • 2023 January 14, Trocheck Mate @RSolisByx, Twitter‎^[2]:

     Twitter whooshed your tweet away before I read all of it lmao.

4. (transitive, MLE, slang) To kill by gun, to shoot.
   • 2019 September 29, Moscow17 (lyrics and music), “All For The Cause”‎^[3]:

     Man do it for the team
     Kick him and swing him on landing
     The olders are whooshed
     Brass and bruck
     I promise all of them has been (dun out 'ere)

   • 2020 August 27, A.M (lyrics and music), “I Ain’t A Yardie” (track 10), in Mally‎^[4]:

     How many man got whooshed like Jackson?

   • 2022 April 27, Tight Road Baby (lyrics and music), “Plugged In” (track 10), in Fumez the Engineer, C Dot (music), Plugged In: S5 (2022)‎^[5]:

     How many man's been whooshed with the stick?

Translations

breathy sound

• Finnish: humista, humahtaa
• Swedish: susa (sv)

Interjection

whoosh

1. Imitates anything passing by quickly and more or less close.
2. (sarcastic) Indicating that somebody has missed the point (i.e. it went over their head).

Derived terms

• argle-bargle morble whoosh