What's the difference between hush and silence?

Hush


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To still; to silence; to calm; to make quiet; to repress the noise or clamor of.
  • (v. t.) To appease; to allay; to calm; to soothe.
  • (v. i.) To become or to keep still or quiet; to become silent; -- esp. used in the imperative, as an exclamation; be still; be silent or quiet; make no noise.
  • (n.) Stillness; silence; quiet.
  • (a.) Silent; quiet.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The exam hall crackles with a hushed excitement as the papers for our last ever exam are taken in.
  • (2) Those whose ears catch the idle chatter from the more indiscreet members of Ed’s office have let drop that the leader was reportedly “furious” with Andy for raising not-so-oblique criticisms of the ‘hush now’ approach to party policy, and he could face the chop.
  • (3) But Britain’s hushed response in a string of cases showed that despite the lip service to human rights they were “not one of our top priorities … the prosperity agenda is further up the list”, as a top official conceded of foreign policy in general.
  • (4) It’s kind of kept under the radar, hushed, so it needs to be talked about.” People needed to know, she added, that abortion restrictions had real victims.
  • (5) I suppose people do need to talk about the Troubles, but they don’t need to do it in such a hushed manner.
  • (6) Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar's name is mentioned in hushed tones among most Yemenis, and he rarely appears in public.
  • (7) It's one thing for critics and curators to single out the next rising star from China, expecting hushed reverence from the general public, but quite another for us to genuinely engage with the art of China past and present.
  • (8) At 11.35am, within a packed and hushed court 1, Redknapp and his fellow defendant, the former Portsmouth football club owner Milan Mandaric, hugged in the glass-walled dock after the female jury foreman responded with quiet answers of "not guilty" to each count.
  • (9) But it is also the incantatory darkness of dreams and visions, death and memory, as an observing consciousness creeps into the "blinded bedrooms" of the town's inhabitants, hushing and inviting us on: "Come now, drift up the dark, come up the drifting sea-dark street now in the dark night seesawing like the sea ... " Blind Captain Cat is dreaming of long-ago sea voyages and long-dead lovers; twice-widowed Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard of her henpecked husbands; Organ Morgan of musical extravaganzas; Polly Garter of babies; Mary Ann Sailors of the Garden of Eden; Dai Bread of "Turkish girls.
  • (10) But he was carried off and a kind of hush descended."
  • (11) Back at the hotel for the photo shoot, a great hush falls over the suite.
  • (12) A hush descends whenever we hear the voice of Lorraine, whose resentment towards her mother remains palpable.
  • (13) In a front-page comment piece, Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of Haaretz, wrote: "Instead of hushing up the blunder, [gag orders] merely shine a spotlight on it.
  • (14) After a tense first half, the second act, which includes the depiction of Klinghoffer’s murder, was quieter, with a sole exclamation of “this is shit!” by a woman in the stalls, who was hushed by the rest of the audience.
  • (15) The compound that oversaw industry during the boom years now has a fading, almost unreadable sign and a deathly hush.
  • (16) Does a lullaby have to be traditional, or do you find yourself making it up as you go, singing original lyrics to the tune of Hush Little Baby ?
  • (17) With echoes of the Catholic priest scandal, for decades rabbis have hushed up child sex crimes and fomented a culture in which victims are further victimised and abusers protected.
  • (18) Rather than a bribe, Ecclestone's defence team claims the $44m payments were hush money.
  • (19) He is hush-hush about how the portraits will turn out, partly because he hasn’t finished them and partly because he wants to save the big reveal for TV and an accompanying exhibition .
  • (20) From 12.02pm, they hushed for four and a half minutes – one for each hour Brown was left lying uncovered on Canfield Drive in the midday heat after being shot, a situation which enraged his friends and family.

Silence


Definition:

  • (n.) The state of being silent; entire absence of sound or noise; absolute stillness.
  • (n.) Forbearance from, or absence of, speech; taciturnity; muteness.
  • (n.) Secrecy; as, these things were transacted in silence.
  • (n.) The cessation of rage, agitation, or tumilt; calmness; quiest; as, the elements were reduced to silence.
  • (n.) Absence of mention; oblivion.
  • (interj.) Be silent; -- used elliptically for let there be silence, or keep silence.
  • (v. t.) To compel to silence; to cause to be still; to still; to hush.
  • (v. t.) To put to rest; to quiet.
  • (v. t.) To restrain from the exercise of any function, privilege of instruction, or the like, especially from the act of preaching; as, to silence a minister of the gospel.
  • (v. t.) To cause to cease firing, as by a vigorous cannonade; as, to silence the batteries of an enemy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) If Cory Bernardi wasn’t currently in a period of radio silence as he contemplates his immediate political future he’d be all over this too, mining the Trumpocalypse – or in our domestic context, mining the fertile political fault line where Coalition support intersects with One Nation support.
  • (2) More evil than Clocky , the alarm clock that rolls away when you reach out to silence it, or the Puzzle Alarm , which makes you complete a simple puzzle before it'll go quiet, the Money Shredding Alarm Clock methodically destroys your cash unless you rouse yourself.
  • (3) So much of England possesses this grace and silence.
  • (4) Generally, more distant neurones (500-1300 microns) were excited for variable periods of time (3-15 min), while neurones in the vicinity of the injection site (0-500 microns) showed, after a brief period of excitation time, a long-lasting (up to 30 min) decrease in excitability or silencing of discharge, probably due to a depolarizing block and disturbances in the ionic composition of the extracellular space.
  • (5) Cameron has already announced there will be one minute’s silence on Friday at noon, a week after the start of the killing.
  • (6) In addition, he describes a type of transference interpretation that is better not made, and emphasizes the transference value of silence on the part of the analyst at certain crucial moments in the analysis.
  • (7) According to his blog, he's been acting on the advice of a friend and pursuing a course of "silence, exile and cunning", but I'm not sure a couple of years of not giving interviews to Heat qualifies.
  • (8) Transient ischemic electrical silence with Q waves in the absence of MI is a rare phenomenon and affects the anterior leads much more commonly than the inferior leads.
  • (9) But Clegg also says he is not going to be cowed into taking Cameron's vow of silence about Farage's assertion that he finds Britain unrecognisable and is uncomfortable at the lack of English spoken on commuter trains out of Charing Cross.
  • (10) The site's manifesto proclaims that "the goal … is to break down the wall of omertà and silence that protects the mafia … We call on all citizens: 'if you know something, say something'".
  • (11) That led to the second breakthrough, as the once formidable laws of omerta - silence punishable by death - cracked.
  • (12) 1:109-124, 1983) suggested that the insertion might have been selected to silence a disadvantageous bglR+ allele.
  • (13) He criticised attempts to create “safe spaces” by silencing controversial speakers such as Germaine Greer, who was recently targeted by students at the University of Cardiff for her position on transgender women.
  • (14) Von Trier, who took a " vow of silence " after being banned from the Cannes film festival in 2011 after joking about Nazism during a press conference for Melancholia, arrived at Nymphomaniac's photocall wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Persona Non Grata"; true to his word, he failed to attend the subsequent press conference where his actors and producer talked about the film.
  • (15) They were tested both in silence and against a background of continuous spoken Arabic presented at 75 dB(A).
  • (16) Our data indicate that these elements exert their effect irrespective of orientation and position, suggesting that they are silencers.
  • (17) The silence about Ji's fate was broken by his former boss, Nanjing party secretary Yang Weize.
  • (18) • The News of the World was ordered to hand over details of the secret agreement which it struck with Gordon Taylor in the earlier case as well agreements it has made withMulcaire which are alleged to have bought his silence.
  • (19) But the case is widely seen as a means of silencing the man who has become Putin's loudest critic.
  • (20) In the silence, I heard a car reversing in the courtyard and then the Þrst slow notes of the call to prayer.