8 Ways to Tell Someone to Be Quiet

Usually used to tell someone to be quiet.

Hush may function as a number of different parts of speech (verb, noun, and adjective), although it comes from a Middle English interjection (huissht, used to enjoin silence). When formed with the adjective suffix -ful it gives us hushful, meaning “full of silence; quiet.”

Definition - silent.

Sometimes it is nice to have an obscure way to refer to common things, and one would be hard-pressed to find a word more obscure than conticent.

• The word comes in part from the Latin tacēre (to be silent), a word which also serves as the root of tacit (expressed or carried on without words or speech) and tacet (used as a direction in music to indicate that an instrument is not to play during a movement or long section).

Definition - a becoming or keeping silent or mute.

Obmutescence is another lovely and obscure entry in the catalog of words for being quiet. It comes from adding the prefix ob- (to, toward) to the Latin mutescere (to become mute).

Definition - to urge to be quiet.

Although shush and hush would appear to be cut from the same cloth, etymologically speaking, the two words are distinct. 

Shush is of imitative origin, and is often used in the imperative to urge cessation of talk or moderation of sound.

Definition - used to tell someone to stop talking.

Shut your pie hole may not be apt for most academic writing.

This euphonious idiom is first found in Stephen King’s 1983 novel Christine. However, this use is preceded by a similar turn of phrase, shut your cake-hole; in both cases referring apparently to the mouth, through which one might ingest either cake or pie.

Definition - forbearance from speech or noise; muteness — often used interjectionally.

“Silence!” is always a good thing to yell when trying to quiet a room full of unruly children. It is unlikely to have such effect, but at least manages to convey an air of gravitas.

The word comes from the Latin silens (silent), which also serves as the root of a number of other, lesser known words relating to quiet, including silential (conducted in silence) and silentious (habitually silent).

Definition - that’s enough; stop it!

Although it is often used in English, we label basta as an Italian and Spanish verb. This is due to the fact that it has never really been fully naturalized in English, even though it has been in some use for hundreds of years.

• The word may be found as far back as 1543, when Sir William Paget used it in a letter to the Earl of Hertford (“but as the Italyen saith, Basta”).
• It also appears in the writings of a number of 17th century playwrights, including Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.