hhhhh.

n.  a cough, as when choking from the smoke of a firepot in the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes.

hhhhhhh hhhhhhh hhhhhhh.

(also hhhhh hhhhh hhhhh.)  n.  a “disconcerting ... kind of cosmic gasping” of an “impossible to identify” rainforest animal (William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War); see also hhh hhh hhh hhh hhh.

<Its breath goes hhhhhhh hhhhhhh hhhhhhh and then hhhhh hhhhh hhhhh, and it is coming up after me.  —William Manchester, Goodbye, Darkness: A Memoir of the Pacific War.>

hhhhhht hhhhhht hhhhhht hhhhhhhht.

n.  the “monotonous, husky, crackling insect-like” song of the Chinese Bush Warbler, as described in A Guide to the Birds of Southeast Asia by Craig Robson.

HHHHHMMMMMMM.

n.  a sigh of “self-dissatisfaction,” with “feelings of powerlessness” (Lisa Miller, The Alarm Clock of Your Life is Ringing: Time to Wake up to Happiness and Enlightenment, 2nd Edition).

hhhhm.

interj.  a sigh of despair.

<[H]hhhm, all through my life my luck’s been against me.  It’s almost as if I was heading for the bottom all the time and now I’ve pretty well reached it.  —Roger Gomm, Social Research Methodology: A Critical Introduction.>

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