I've always been a bit of a light sleeper, especially after I had my daughter. I can still remember waking up at every little movement she made before getting up to check on her. It's made life both easier and harder in some ways. The simplest susurrus has been known to wake me on occasion. And that happened last night when I heard a cat cry that was certainly not the bold and brilliant meow of my older feline. I woke with a start, calling said kitty's name, and she was at my bedside meowing her familiar call, making me wonder if I just dreamed the other meow.
I do enjoy stumbling upon enjoyable words such as this one, even if the meaning is a little narrow. Most of the time, I like to use adjectives, because they can hold much more weight in terms of descriptive power. But sometimes, there are those nouns that are just so intriguing!
Susurrus | su̇-ˈsər-əs: noun: a whispering or rustling sound
In the case of this word, what I love the most about finding it is that I found it right after using yesterday's word, and it means basically the opposite of that word! What a perfect coincidence I stumbled into.
For this particular word, I dug a little deeper into its etymology, more out of pure curiosity, and it turns out that instead of there being a derivative, either from Latin, Greek, French, et cetera, it is - quite literally - just a Latin word! The main difference I was able to glean from the vast internet was that there were two words that were chosen from, susurrus, which means whisper, and susurrare, meaning to murmur or hum. There was also susurratio, which became the medical term, susurration, in the late nineteenth century.
Susurrus | suˈsɜːrəs: noun: a soft murmuring or rustling sound; whisper
Using words like this really does help to keep a dead language remembered. I used to study Latin when I was a kid, and I hated how often I saw the words only used for scientific purposes. I learned more about Roman culture than I did the language, itself, because I found the fact that we no longer used Latin for anything other than scientific names and word derivatives disappointing. Words like susurrus mean that much more to me as a writer because it was a word we inevitably didn't change. That makes it special because it helps keep the twinkle in the stars of Latin alive in our modern world.
How I've seen it used most recently was to describe the soft murmurs of people in a crowd as well as the gentle voice of the wind. Like yesterday's word, it almost seems to create a melody in my imagination that creates the background noise for the scene that's being created in my mind's eye. It's really quite a lovely word.
Behind him the voices of the Tribe, raised in passionate discussion with his father, began to fade, eventually mixing indistinguishable with the susurrus of the nigh wind through the mighty pines.
It makes me wonder how many more gems like this I can find. I like seeing words that aren't really changed from their origin because, sometimes, it's good not to change. Change is good in many ways. Growth from a single definition to having multiple meanings can be beneficial for that word. But it's still nice to see that some have stuck to their roots.
Do you have any words you know that haven't changed from the original word or meaning? Let me know below or in the comments on my Facebook page, Cass Writes. And until tomorrow, happy reading!
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