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HUMMING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of singing with closed lips
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("humming" is a kind of...):
singing; vocalizing (the act of singing vocal music)
Derivation:
hum (sing with closed lips)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A humming noise
Example:
the hum of distant traffic
Synonyms:
hum; humming
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("humming" is a kind of...):
noise (sound of any kind (especially unintelligible or dissonant sound))
Derivation:
hum (make a low continuous sound)
hum (be noisy with activity)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb hum
Context examples:
When it was over, and Mugridge was back in the galley, he became greasily radiant, and went about his work, humming coster songs in a nerve-racking and discordant falsetto.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
The occasion was this: the kingdom is much pestered with flies in summer; and these odious insects, each of them as big as a Dunstable lark, hardly gave me any rest while I sat at dinner, with their continual humming and buzzing about mine ears.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
A periodic humming or blowing sound heard on auscultation of the heart that can indicate the presence of cardiac disease; murmurs are the result of vibrations caused by the turbulent flow of blood in the heart or great vessels.
(Heart Murmur, NCI Thesaurus)
It could be nothing but the violence of the wind penetrating through the divisions of the shutters; and she stepped boldly forward, carelessly humming a tune, to assure herself of its being so, peeped courageously behind each curtain, saw nothing on either low window seat to scare her, and on placing a hand against the shutter, felt the strongest conviction of the wind's force.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
Your servant, and then walking out with me in his most fashionable manner, making a good deal of noise on the pavement with his shoes, and humming a tune as we went.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in the afternoon.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The willow-wren with his army also came flying through the air with such a humming, and whirring, and swarming that every one was uneasy and afraid, and on both sides they advanced against each other.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
As she used them, Jo found herself humming the songs Beth used to hum, imitating Beth's orderly ways, and giving the little touches here and there that kept everything fresh and cozy, which was the first step toward making home happy, though she didn't know it till Hannah said with an approving squeeze of the hand...
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I remember, one morning, when Glumdalclitch had set me in a box upon a window, as she usually did in fair days to give me air (for I durst not venture to let the box be hung on a nail out of the window, as we do with cages in England), after I had lifted up one of my sashes, and sat down at my table to eat a piece of sweet cake for my breakfast, above twenty wasps, allured by the smell, came flying into the room, humming louder than the drones of as many bagpipes.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
