rumourer

Why this word is great

RUMOURER — [Noun] One who spreads rumours; a teller of news or reports. From rumour ("unverified information or gossip") + -er (agent noun suffix). Unlike a "gossip" (who trades in petty, often malicious personal tidings) or a "herald" (who bears sanctioned proclamations), the rumourer deals in the currency of the unverified, the half-heard, the plausible-but-unproven. It is the whisper in the marketplace, the scribbled note passed under a tavern table, the voice at the edge of the campfire insisting that the king is dead, the army routed, the plague coming—each utterance a small, self-replicating spark, feeding on the human hunger to know what cannot yet be known.