rockabye

verb

1. (ambitransitive)To rock soothingly.

   ““We have a Chopin player in the house,” he said. And with a tiny smile he rockabyed the opening phrase of the Ballade and turned his head to look straight at Katie.”

   “It was a pleasant day, the boat rockabyed in the slight chop and by late afternoon I was more nearly asleep than awake.”

   “From the lowliest panhandler on the street to the worthiest recipient of today’s social security benefits we are being “spoiled rotten” and rockabyed to sleep to the strains of that haunting lullaby known as the Beggar-American Rhapsody “Gimme gimme, gimme gimme gimme.””

   “And lying down that night why should I hear the Brownsville trains that long had rockabyed me?”

   “Sprung rubber alarm clock: it bounced apart All over him: boingg: it loves him to death. The rubber loops contort, their moil and clench Rockabyeing him out of this world.”

noun

1. A soothing rocking motion.

   “All the lullabies of the world suggest undulatory movements or rockabyes in the tree tops.”

   “This is what Eve was thinking as she listened to the dance music swinging like a rockabye hammock hung between the silky strands of[…]”

   “Every forty-five minutes occurred A Laugh, selected sea-chanties were alternately mumbled and roared, and the saddest intermission orchestra I have ever heard fiddled jigs and reels to a rockabye tempo.”

   “Carruthers’ sobs have a rockabye beat.”

   “ROCKABYE HAMMOCK. Grown-ups aren’t the only ones who love the sunny laziness of a hammock, so this one has been designed for children between the ages of four and ten.”