to hum
69
1.0
- verb
- /hʌm/
:
tararear
- She began to hum her favorite melody as she worked in the garden.
- hum a tune
- hum along
- hum a song
It's impossible to hum while pinching your nose.
- It's impossible to hum while pinching your nose.
- Get out of your car, lie down on the ground, roll into a ball and hum softly.
- We can just, we can like hum some gibberish for the verses just to give Mark, our producer, an idea of how to like build the song.
Examples
-
Sing the song for them and ask them to hum the melody.
Academic text (2003) -
As he drives, he is humming to himself a rendition of Al Jolson's "Sonny Boy."
Fiction book (1990) -
Or would that give it away if we hum it, maybe Go, go, go new challenge.
-
And I tend to find the first thing that I sing or hum, you know, like, you know what I mean?
-
Have half the class hum one song while the other half sings the other song.
Academic text (1997) -
It's impossible to hum while pinching your nose.
-
Now my mama is singing me to sleep, humming near my ear.
Fiction book (1993) -
Aaron is not listening; sitting with his knee on the desk, he begins humming again.
Academic text (2008) -
A seventh-grade girl starts humming a hauntingly beautiful tune from "Phantom of the Opera."
Academic text (2015) -
"Oh, hi, Charlene!" she said brightly, and went on scrubbing, humming tunelessly to herself.
Fiction book (1991)
Synonyms
1
9.9
To make a low steady humming sound
Antonyms
Compounds
How Loud
Surface Forms
Etymology
Hum began as an old sound word that copied the soft 'hmm' people make when they sing with closed lips, like the gentle noise of a bee or a hummingbird. So to hum a tune is to make that quiet, wordless melody.