Hush Money 堵嘴钱；封口费
A payment made to an individual to keep them from disclosing certain information to others. Often illegal.
例句 Taking hush money from the underworld gang, the witness kept his mouth shut about what he saw.
目击者从黑社会歹徒那里拿了“封口费”，对他见到的一切守口如瓶。
Hush money意思是a bribe paid to someone to insure that something is kept secret.（为了让某人对某事保密而行的贿赂）。Hush做动词可以解释为“不要做声，掩盖”。所以，hush money就是为了防止某人揭露一个罪行或者一个丑闻而付给他的一笔钱。
这种做法由来已久，hush money这个习惯用语也至少有三百年的历史了。我们还可以用hush up来表达“掩盖”某事的意思，hush the scandal up就是指的“把丑闻掩盖起来”。