Wheesht noun and interjection a call for silence, hush
‘“Haud your wheesht, dog,” a tall, dark man said in a tolerant tone. “Come ben, sir, and dinna be minding him. He wouldna eat you; he’s had his dinner.”’ (Written in my own Heart’s Blood)
Wheesht (there are numerous variant spellings, ranging from quish to whust) is a well-known expression in Scots. It is primarily a ‘call for silence’, as in Walter Scott’s Old Mortality (1816): ‘Whisht, haud your tongue, and sup your sowens [husks].’ Or, more recently, from the Aberdeen Evening Express (1999): ‘... every Friday would see them in the Queen’s Cinema, oblivious to the film, passing on the titillating gems they’d gleaned that week about neighbourhood hatchings, matchings and bidie-ins, while constantly getting torch-flashed by the usherette commanding them to wheesht.’
Wheesht can be used as a transitive verb meaning ‘to silence, cause to be quiet, hush’, as in this example from The New Shetlander (1955): ‘At lang last Magnie got him wheestit doon.’ Or intransitively - ‘to be quiet’ - as in the title of the group Women Won’t Wheesht.
It can also be used as a noun to mean silence, often in the phrase ‘to haud or keep one’s wheesht’, ‘to be quiet, hold one’s tongue’. And, poetically here, for hush: ‘Then comes a wheesht an’ a’ is still’ (W D Cocker Poems, 1932).
A more recent use of wheesht is as an expression of disapproval. This usage features in a headline (‘Wheesht, Man!’) in the Sunday Post of 1950 relating to the Budget: ‘Sir Stafford, man, ye’ve fairly done it! On “Famous Words” ye’ve put the cappy, For in y’r dreary Budget speech Ye went an’ ca’d this country happy!’
Wheesht can also mean sound, exemplified by this entertaining account of a dentist visit in the Milngavie and Bearsden Herald (September 1955) entitled ‘Never a Wheesht’: ‘“A rare brave wee chap oor Hughie. Been in there about 20 meenits, and there’s never been a wheesht.” She juist spoke ower quick. Frae ben the hoose cama yowl that wud hae frichted the soles off a pair o’ second hand Wellingtons, and oot came the dentist sookin’ his thoomb.’
The word was current in northern England as late as the seventeenth century, however, since that time it seems to be restricted to Scottish sources.