different between susurration vs susurrus

English

Etymology

From Latin susurratio.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

susurration (countable and uncountable, plural susurrations)

1. A low, indistinct continuous whispering sound; a murmur.
   • Beyond the Wall by Ambrose Bierce

     The rain was now falling more steadily, with a low, monotonous susurration, interrupted at long intervals by the sudden slashing of the boughs of the trees as the wind rose and failed.

   • 1965 Dune by Frank Herbert

     Halleck nodded, heard the faint susurration and felt the air shift as a lockport swung open beside him.

   • 2004 Oct 17, Laura Cumming, in The Observer. From a whisper to a scream

     Coming in feels almost like going out - an audible breeze threatening to swell into a blizzard, waves breaking and withdrawing, the open air tuned to so many sounds that your own are absorbed in the rise and fall of murmurs, shouts, susurrations, plosives, stutters and echoes - and above them all, like Prospero, the voice of the artist humming to himself as if thinking (or not thinking) aloud.

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin susurrus (“a humming, whispering”); reduplication of imitative Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“to buzz, hum”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?su?.s?.??s/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?su.s?.??s/, /s??s??.?s/

Noun

susurrus (plural susurruses)

1. (literary) A whispering or rustling sound; a murmur.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of De Quincey to this entry?)

   • The soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.

Related terms

• insusurration
• susurrant, susurrous
• susurrate
• susurration

Translations

Latin

Etymology

Reduplication of imitative Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“to buzz, hum”). See also Latin surdus, Lithuanian surma (“a pipe”), Russian ???????? (svirél?, “a pipe, reed”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /su?sur.rus/, [s???s??r??s?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /su?sur.rus/, [su?s?ur?us]

Noun

susurrus m (genitive susurr?); second declension

1. whisper
2. murmur

Declension

Second-declension noun.

Descendants

• Italian: sussurro
• Spanish: susurro
• Romanian: susur

References

• susurrus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• susurrus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• susurrus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette