the.com/murmur
the sound a secret makes on its way to becoming everyone's business
means To speak in a low, soft, indistinct voice, or to make a continuous hushed sound — and, by extension, to grumble a quiet complaint.
from From Latin 'murmur,' meaning a humming or muttering — itself an echoic word, born from the very sound it names, like a brook or a low grumble doubled back on itself. Many languages reach for the same soft 'm' and 'r' sounds for this idea, possibly because that's simply what quiet, indistinct speech feels like in the mouth. It drifted into English through Old French 'murmure.'
- heart talk
- a murmur is blood whooshing where it shouldn't
- crowd math
- thousands of quiet voices add up to a roar
- latin root
- comes from murmurare, imitating the low sound itself
- legal term
- jurors murmuring can signal a verdict before it's read
still point tavern murmur — acoustical phenomenon in a boston bar where sound waves create an unexplained persistent whisper in one corner, documented since the 1970s
heart murmur — abnormal heart sound affecting millions globally, commonly detected in children and athletes through stethoscope examination
murmur of the bees — 1911 spanish piano composition by enrique granados, famous for mimicking buzzing bee sounds