soughing means A rushing, rustling sound. It carries an Arena rating of 1848, earned across 23 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, soughing ranks #136 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #454 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #915 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,001 of 17,142 for Most Ingenious Words.
Why “soughing” is a great word
A rushing, rustling, or murmuring sound, as of wind through trees or water. From Middle English *sough, swough, swogh*, derived from Old English *swōgan*, meaning to make a sound, roar, or rustle. Unlike the light, dry chatter of *rustling* leaves or the intimate, human-scale flow of a *murmuring* brook, soughing is the deeper, more continuous voice of the atmosphere itself. It is the resonant passage of a night wind through a stand of pines, the weary exhalation of a tide withdrawing over shingle, and the low, constant hum of air in a high desert canyon—the sound of the world breathing when it thinks no one is listening.
noun
- A rushing, rustling sound.e.g.“So she sat, looking at the rain, listening to the many noiseless noises of it, and to the strange soughings of wind in upper branches, when there seemed to be no wind.” — 1928, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 8, in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Gutenberg edition, [Florence, Italy]: [ […] Tipografia Giuntina, […]], →OCLC; republished as Lady Chatterley’s Lover (eBook no.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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