A Word You Need To Know: Susurrus
You know when you hear a great-sounding word that you’ve never heard of before, and then it turns out to have a beautiful, fitting meaning too? For me, coming across the word ‘susurrus’ recently was just that.
The Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word susurrus is ‘A low soft sound, as of whispering or muttering; a whisper; a rustling’. The context I first heard the word in was a description of the movement of leaves on a tree in a slight breeze, and this seems to be a pretty common poetic usage of the word. For instance, the Oxford English Dictionary gives the below citation from the epic poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, published in 1847:
“This was their rural chapel. Aloft, through the intricate arches
Of its aerial roof, arose the chant of their vespers,
Mingling its notes with the soft susurrus and sighs of the
branches.”
The poem is set during the Expulsion of the Acadians (1755–64), the forced removal by British forces of Acadian people from the provinces of Canada now known as Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Northern Maine — which were, at the time, called Acadia. It follows Evangeline, an Acadian girl who is removed from her home, and her search for her lost love Gabriel.
In this section of the poem Evangeline and her fellow travellers have come across a group of Christians residing in the forest, in their ‘rural chapel’. The ‘vespers’ are an evening prayer, and so it is the sound of their voices which is ‘mingling’ with the susurrus (rustling/whispering) of the trees’ branches around them.
What I love about the word susurrus
The thing I like best about the word susurrus is how it sounds, rolling softly off the tongue. It starts and ends with an ‘s’ sound, with an ‘s’ in the middle too. This creates a lovely sibilance in the word, a gentle hissing sound through the repeated ‘s’ sound. This soft hissing aptly reflects the meaning of the word itself, being a whispering or rustling sound.
This is something that Longfellow clearly enjoyed about the word too. In the extract from his poem above he has played on this sibilance, adding in more and more ‘s’ sounds to the sentence he uses susurrus within, adding to the overal effect: “soft susurrus and sighs of the branches.”
Because susurrus is commonly used to describe nature — the movement of trees, the crashing of waves on the beach, the sound of wind whistling — it also evokes (to me) a strong sense of the changing of the seasons. It’s now the end of September. In the UK that means that the leaves are starting to turn crimson red, and to litter the streets with their colours. The temperature is dropping; the wind is rising. And so sursurrus also seems to be the perfect word for me to come across at this particular time of year, adding to the joy of the discovery.
What wonderful words have you come across recently? I’d love to know — leave your favourite in the comments below.
