ffft.

n.  the angry hiss of a duck whose treasure and flying carpet have been stolen, as in Walt Disney’s Comics in Color, Volume 7 by Carl Barks.


n.  the combustion of a matchstick; the spark of creative synergy.

<[T]hose connections [between emotional matters and subliminally registered facts] are the most interesting moment—no, second, like the ffft! of a match—in the process of writing.  —Rosellen Brown, “You Are Not Here Long,” Letters to a Fiction Writer.>

n.  the crack of pottery splitting in two.

<That very moment and second, O Best Beloved, the Milk-pot that stood by the fire cracked in two pieces—ffft!—because it remembered the bargain she had made with the Cat; and when the Woman jumped down from the footstool—lo and behold!—the Cat was lapping up the warm white milk that lay in one of the broken pieces.  —Rudyard Kipling, “The Cat That Walked By Himself,” Just-So Stories.>

n.  the hiss of a cat, as in Garfield Tips the Scales: His 8th Book by Jim Davis.


n.  the sound of a gun silencer.

<You might wonder how you can possibly take an explosive noise that can damage your hearing and turn it into a little “ffft” sound like you see in the movies.  Gun silencers work on a very simple principle to silence guns.  —Marshall Brain, Marshall Brain’s How Stuff Works: How Much Does the Earth Weigh?>

- END OF PREVIEW - To read more, see the "Search Inside" feature at Amazon.com