Scottish word of the week: Wheesht

THE Scottish vernacular contains a whole host of phrases designed to keep others quiet, but ‘wheesht’ may be one of the most interesting.

By The Newsroom Wednesday, 17th April 2013, 8:58 am

Hearts owner Vladimir Romanov compelling the media to 'haud their wheesht'. Picture: TSPL

First used in the 14th century, ‘wheesht’ has the handy bonus of being very adaptable. It can be used as a verb, a noun, and an interjection as in asking someone to ‘haud their wheesht’.

Sign up to our daily newsletter The i newsletter cut through the noise Sign up Thanks for signing up! Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting...

Ironically, the word itself comes from adding more sounds to the original and widely-used command to ‘shh’, which acts as the root for the Scots word. It also features in English as ‘whisht’, but has fallen out of favour compared to its Scots counterpart.

Despite its demise south of the border, ‘wheesht’ has been noted by many scholars and etymologists to have a couple of key advantages over its fellow commands for silence.