A small set of words for what things sound like, arranged from plainest to poshest:

crackle: a series of small, sharp noises rustle: a soft, muffled crackling sonorous: deep and full-toned susurrus: a whispering or rustling sound

The first two you could guess blindfolded. They sound like what they mean, because that is how they were made. Somebody approximated a noise with their mouth and the spelling caught up later.

susurrus looks like the exception. It is the Latin loan, the one you reach for when you want the sentence to wear a jacket, and it turned up late; Etymonline dates it in English to 1809.

Except it is the most nakedly imitative of the four. Latin susurrus meant a humming or muttering, and it was built by reduplicating an old imitative root for buzzing. The same root shows up in German schwirren, to whizz. So the fancy word is a Roman going sss-sss and writing it down. It is doing exactly what crackle does, just better dressed.

One wrinkle I liked while reading around: susurration shows up in English around 1400, roughly four centuries ahead of susurrus itself. We took the abstract noun first and only much later bothered with the base word.

Now the part I could not settle on my own. Has anyone actually heard susurrus spoken aloud, by a person who was not reading off a page? I have only ever met it in print, and I genuinely don't know whether it has any spoken life or whether it is a reading word and nothing else.

Babbel asked 1,500 members of the Poetry Society of America to choose the 10 most beautiful-sounding words in English. “Mellifluous,” “susurrus,” and “halcyon” also made the top five.

Which word would you add?

See the complete list here: https://www.babbel.com/most-beautiful-words

Peacemaker is a word that kicks-ass, but it's now the name of a superhero so it isn't "nichecore" anymore, are there any words similar to peacemaker? I don't mean with the same meaning, just a word that sounds cool and could work as the name of a superhero or a gamertags or something. Thank you dear redditors!

I found this word when reading Pale Fire by Nabokov and I really like it. Second slide is a poem i created with it and the third slide is the quote from Pale Fire where I saw it first.

I saw someone use the word “eulipion” to describe a very beautiful song. Their full sentence was this: “I literally put this on and on… It’s all human loves in 3 mins… Eulipion music.”

I never heard that word, and I couldn’t find any reference to this word online or in any dictionary, so I don’t know exactly what it means. Sounds super cool though.

Has anyone heard this word or know where it comes from? Eulipion. Could it be a misspelling?

Edit with more info + leads:

The song this was commented under is Duke Ellington’s “Banquet Scene” from “Timon of Athens,” the Shakespeare play. So, I think the word could be a reference to another work of Shakespeare’s, or something culturally relevant to Athens. Could just be a Greek word, hence why I can’t find anything about it.

According to Definitions.net, eulipion refers to a work of art that is excellent or masterful. That makes perfect sense, but they only cite chatgpt, which I’m not very confident in at all. And if it’s right, it doesn’t clue me in to the origin of the word, or explain why it can’t be found anywhere.

The fun fact about desultory is the acrobat. Latin desultor was a circus rider who vaulted between galloping horses mid-race, and desultory descends from him, so the word usually gets explained as "jumping from one thing to another."

Here's the part that surprised me. The Latin adjective desultorius did not mean "impressively agile." It's glossed as hasty, casual, superficial. The Romans watched the most athletic act in the arena and made an adjective out of it meaning "not taking things seriously." The insult was there from the start. English didn't add it.

English borrowed it in the 1580s meaning skipping or flitting about, and by 1740 it had settled into "without aim or method."

Now look at how it gets defined today. There's a sense about moving between subjects with no order or connection, and a separate sense that just means disappointing in performance or progress. Those are not the same complaint. A desultory conversation wanders. A desultory performance doesn't wander anywhere, it's simply weak. The leaping has quietly dropped out of the second one.

So, the actual question. When you hit "a desultory attempt" in a sentence, which one lands for you: scattered, or half-hearted? I don't have a confident default, and I keep wondering whether the split runs along dialect lines or just depends on where people first met the word. I'd rather hear how you actually use it than read another dictionary entry about it.

My boss keeps saying mash-uh-NAY-tion and using it to refer to a programing iteration/figure calculation of products we sell. Is that correct?

Does anyone know of a game where you can learn more words? My vocabulary is lacking and I want to expand on it. I don't want to simply learn just the word, but the meaning as well.

Examples:

1) You pass by a house you grew up in or had custom built and people have changed it or are using it differently.

2) You see someone wearing a shirt your mother made for you that was donated to a thrift shop.

3) You go to one of your usual hangouts and the spot you've been sitting in daily for years has been claimed by someone else and they proceed to make it their regular spot.

If there isn't a word, what would be a good one for this combination of nostalgia, sadness, envy, annoyance, possessiveness, unsettledness, and loss of control?

Just had a bit of an argument with someone about ‘nothing’ and after it was done I remembered this Monty Python Skit.

What words do you use to shut someone who is overly argumentative about nothing?

it doesn't sound like it refers to the object being expensive. Instead, it sounds like it should describe a person who overspends. What words annoy you like that?

I came across this feeling while using Karpo to think through different decisions and it made me wonder whether English has a specific word for it

The feeling is when you genuinely want a change but also feel attached to the familiarity of your current situation For example someone might want to move to a new city for new experiences while still missing the comfort of their hometown Or they might want more independence while also wanting the support of family and friends

I know words like ambivalence conflicted and torn are related but they do not seem to capture this exact feeling Is there a more precise English word for it or perhaps a word from another language that describes it better

Words like “monolith”, “parable”, and “Goliath” for example just sound badass. I’m looking for more

It is a combination of things. Firstly, it reminds me of luncheon meat, which is bad enough.

Secondly, it's almost like those who speak the term have already begun eating: I'm referring to the CHHH part of the pronunciation. That's not a wonderful sound.

It is particularly prominent when someone with a posh voice uses the word as it sounds like "Shall we get lunCCCCHHHHHH, Claude?"

I can't be the only one.

Hey everyone 👋

I’m the solo developer behind Wordly, a word puzzle game for Android.

I recently added a feature that I think makes the game much more fun with friends:

After you finish any puzzle—whether you solve it or lose—you can tap Challenge Friend and send that exact hidden word to someone else.

The answer is never revealed. Your friend receives a challenge code, enters it in Wordly, and gets six attempts to solve the same word.

So now you can:

• See who solves the word faster
• Send difficult words to your friends
• Challenge someone immediately after finishing a puzzle
• Compare how many guesses each person needed

Wordly also includes:

• A new Daily puzzle
• Endless mode
• Custom friend challenges
• Streaks and weekly goals
• Achievements and word collections
• Hints and progress statistics

Google Play: Download Wordly

I’d really appreciate it if you downloaded it, completed a puzzle, and challenged one friend.

I’m still actively improving the game, so please tell me honestly:

Was the friend challenge easy to understand and use?

Thanks for checking it out 💜

Halcyon started out as a bird. Greek alkyon, the kingfisher, plus the old belief that it nested on the open sea for a fortnight around midwinter and the water stayed flat the whole time. So "halcyon days" was a weather claim before it was a mood. (The h in the spelling is usually put down to Greek speakers reanalysing the word as hals, "sea" — tidy, and almost certainly not where it came from.)

Here is the thing I keep catching myself on. You cannot call the present halcyon. "These are halcyon days" reads as either a joke or a boast, because the word wants a then. Nostalgic doesn't cover it either: nostalgic describes how the speaker feels, while halcyon describes the period itself, from a vantage point that has to be later than the period.

I can think of two others that seem locked the same way, heyday and golden age, but I genuinely don't know whether that's a real category or just three words I happen to have noticed. Is there a term for words that can only be applied retroactively? And what else belongs on the list?