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F
fzzt.
n.  the sound of something whizzing away.

<“Jim gets up nice and slow, then fzzt!  And he’s off after the thing.”  “Caught it, too,” said Virgil.  “Never seen nobody catch a rabbit with their bare hands.”  —Christian Cameron, Washington and Caesar.>

fzzt-fzzt.
n.  the sound of a radio turner skipping through stations.

<I spun the dial, heard the fzzt-fzzt of stations whirling by.  —David Adsit, “The Big Broadcast, Delayed.”>

fzzt-fzzt-fzzt.
n.  the sound of “a hundred tiny air leaks,” as in the essay “Musique du Ballon” by David Gunn.


fzzz.
n.  the sizzle of sparks.

<Fzzz.  A tiny spray of blue sparks left her fingers, traveled a few inches in the air, sputtered, then faded.  —Tony Abbott, Under the Serpent Sea.>

n.  the sound of instant vaporization.

<Every time he come to a new [wasp nest], the wasps they flew into the fire.  You could see the wings go, not like burning, not like melting, sort of fzzz! they gone.  —Kurt Vonnegut Jr., A Saucer of Loneliness: Volume VII, The Complete Stories of Theodore Sturgeon.>


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Copyright (c) 2000 Craig Conley