pfft.

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).


n.  the sound of a golf ball struck by a club.

<A well-struck explosion shot sounds like the club hit a bag of wet laundry—a sort of pfft.  Tune in to any televised golf tournament and watch a good player hit a greenside sand shot, and you’ll hear what I mean.  —Johnny Miller, Breaking 90 with Johnny Miller.>

n.  the sound of a needle piercing skin.

<The syringe made a little pfft!  —Craig Nova, Wetware: A Novel.>

n.  the sound of a nerve gas pellet that failed to go off.

<Pfft.  The tiny sound came simultaneously with a pinprick in his leg.  ... He scratched his leg with his free hand and dislodged the black pellet.  —Vernor Vinge, “Bookworm, Run!” The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge.>

n.  the sound of a pneumatic seal being broken.

<The steel door had a great wheel set in its face, like a watertight hatch inside a U-boat.  The shoemaker shivered when he heard the hermetic pfft that signaled the opening of the door.  —Greg Iles, Black Cross.>

n.  the sound of a projectile shooting by.

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

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