sssss.

n.  the sound of a cigarette extinguished in water.

<The hot end of her cigarette made a sssss sound as she dipped it into the water of her tub.  —Merry McInerney-Whiteford, If Wishes Were Horses: A Novel.>

n.  the sound of an arrow piercing one’s chest, as in The Hummingbird King: A Guatemalan Legend by Argentina Palacios.


n.  the tangible shock of ice-cold water on bare feet, like a zap of electricity.

<Back in the bathroom, she dumped the bucket of freezer snow on top of the puddle that had been the ice cubes.  Then she ran cold water, filled the bathtub calf-deep, and stepped into it.  Sssss ... The shock of cold feet zapped straight through Issy’s body to her brain.  —Nalo Hopkinson, Skin Folk.>

sssss sssss sssss.

  n.  the sound of someone “crazily imitating” a hissing radiator, as in Not About Nightingales by Tennessee Williams.

Sssss-ssss-ssss-ssss.

n. a stopped-up laugh.

<[T]hen going into a stopped-up laugh, Sssss-ssss-ssss-ssss- until somebody would try to break up his sequence by asking him how was the tennis playing going these days.  —Tom Wolfe, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.>

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