murmurous
adj/ˈmɜː(ɹ).mə.ɹəs/ · /ˈmɜː(ɹ)m.ɹəs/
Etymology From murmur + -ous.
1
Low, indistinct (of a sound); reminiscent of a murmur.
- Like as a fire, the which in hollow cave Hath long bene underkept, and down supprest, With murmurous disdaine doth inly rave, And grudge, in so streight prison to be prest,1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Throughout all the isle There was no covert, no retired cave Unhaunted by the murmurous noise of waves, Though scarcely heard in many a green recess.1818–1819, John Keats, “Hyperion, a Fragment”, in Lamia, Isabella, the Eve of St. Agnes, and Other Poems, London: […] [Thomas Davison] for Taylor and Hessey, […], published 1820, →OCLC, page 193:
4 more examples
- He felt some dark presence moving irresistably upon him from the darkness, a presence subtle and murmurous as a flood filling him wholly with itself.1916 December 29, James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, New York, N.Y.: B[enjamin] W. Huebsch, →OCLC:
- Waiting, with a glass in my hand —three girls in crimson satin pass close before me on the murmurous background of the crowded opera—1917, William Carlos Williams, “Good Night”, in Al Que Quiere, Boston: The Four Seas Company, page 43:
- Marvelling they stood, and watched the long grass swirled By the May breeze, murmurous with wasp and midge,1920, Wilfred Owen, “Spring Offensive”, in Poems, London: Chatto & Windus, page 20:
- And if she speaks in her frail way, it is wholly to bewitch my smallest thought with a most swift radiance wherein slowly drift murmurous things divinely bright;1921, E. E. Cummings, “Puella Mea”, in George J. Firmage, editor, Complete Poems, 1904-1962, New York: Liveright, published 1991, page 21:
- Derived terms
- murmurously, murmurousness, unmurmurous