pfft.

n.  the sound of “a match dipped in water,” as in the novel Some Great Thing by Colin McAdam.


n.  the sound of “the stars whistling for the soul of the shaman” in The Arctic Sky: Inuit Astronomy, Star Lore, and Legend by John MacDonald.


n.  the sound of a body dissolved in a bathtub filled with acid, as discussed in the play Awake and Sing by Clifford Odets.


n.  the sound of a cigarette being extinguished.

<She licked her thumb and forefinger and put out the tip of the joint with the two of them, giving it a quick squeeze.  It made a pfft.  —Craig Nova, Cruisers: A Novel.>

n.  the sound of a falling star.

<“I don’t write films anymore.  I dropped out.  Consider me a fallen star.  Pfft.”  He gestured with his closed hand—a long, slow descent from on high—until his hand dropped to the table and opened, with nothing inside.  —Ellen Sussman, On a Night Like This.>

n.  the sound of a genie casting a spell, as in the joke where a man asks a genie to make him a malted and the genie responds, “Okay, pfft, you’re a malted!” (referenced in Breaking Into the Music Business by Alan H. Siegel).

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