pfft.

n.  the sound of a projectile shooting by.

<Pfft...  ding!  —Lawrence Norfolk, Lemprière’s Dictionary.>

n.  the sound of an entire city emerging from a bottle.

<According to the words, we must take the bottle to a giant sand dune in the Saladian Plains and—pfft!—out of it will come ... the city of Ut!  —Tony Abbott, Flight of the Genie.>

n.  the sound of an overworked calculator melting.

<[T]he calculator gave up the ghost.  To Robert’s surprise, it suddenly went Pfft! and melted down into a sickly green goo.  —Hans Magnus Enzensberger, The Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure.>

n.  the sound of an uncharged laser blaster.

<Dursten drew and fired in a single motion—but his blaster made a little, stupid pfft! and sagged in his hand.  Its charge was gone.  —Piers Anthony, Bearing an Hourglass.>

n.  the sound of blowing air.

<The little nose barely breaks the surface of the water; you hear a ‘pfft’ as it sprays water and air.  Then you see the creature itself—a huge gray mass with a walruslike body that tapers to a beaverlike tail.  —Jeff Campbell, describing the West Indian manatee in Lonely Planet: USA.> <He brushed the tangles of her hair away from his face, making little pfft! noises that made her want to laugh.  —Diana Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn.>

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