Word of the Day Archive
Sunday February 23, 2003
sough \SAU; SUHF\
, intransitive verb:
1. To make a soft, low sighing or rustling sound, as the wind.
noun:
1. A soft, low rustling or sighing sound.
At a recent visit to Marsha's grave in Rathdrum, as the wind soughed through the towering pines nearby, Marsha's brother Pat left a silk bluebird by her headstone to honor her love of the outdoors.
-- David Whitman, "Fields of Fire", U.S. News & World Report, September 3, 2001
In the dark of winter, tin roofs sough with rain.
-- Les A. Murray, "Driving Through Sawmill Towns"
This voice she hears in the fields, in the sough of the wind among the trees, when measured and distant sounds fall upon her ears.
-- Ernest Renan, The Poetry of the Celtic Races
Gunfire, cannonade, and the weeping of bereft wives and mothers might fill the air of the disunited states, but the dominant sound in greater Manhattan would be the cheerful sough of money changing hands.
-- Bill Kauffman, "The Blue, The Gray, and Gotham", American Enterprise, July 2000
Sough comes from Middle English swoughen, from Old English swogan.
Dictionary.com Entry and Pronunciation for sough
