hmmmph.

n.  a snort of frustration, as in the novel The Santaroga Barrier by Frank Herbert.


n.  a sound made while one is reflecting (Cyntha DeFelice, Nowhere to Call Home) or digesting information (Jon A. Jackson, The Diehard).


n.  a wordless grumble when one doesn’t know what to say (Louise Fitzhugh, Harriet the Spy) or can say nothing else (Dan Kerchenroether, Selling Air); a grunt by one whose “facility for repartee seldom peaks before noon” (Patrick F. McManus, The Grasshopper Trap).


n.  an expression indicating that one has lost one’s appetite, as in the novel Carolina Mist by Mariah Stewart.


n.  an expression of disgust, as in the novel The Angel of Montague Street by Norman Green.


n.  an expression of self-pity or regret; a “dramatic sigh” (Julia Quinn, Brighter Than the Sun).

<I heard Rosaleen make a sound like Hmmmph, and I knew she was thinking about her own sorry husband, wishing he hadn’t shown up for their ceremony.  —Sue Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees.>

n.  an hysterical wheezing, as in Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit: A Midnight Louie Mystery by Carole Nelson Douglas.


n.  nothingness, “empty space” (Faye Kellerman, The Forgotten).

hmmnnhhh.

interj.  a cry of pain, as from a stab wound to the navel in Ripley Bogle by Robert McLiam Wilson.

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