murmur

Etymology

The noun is inherited from Middle English murmure,^[2][3] borrowed from Old French murmure^[4][5][6][7] and directly borrowed from Latin murmur (“a low continuous sound, a subdued utterance, a grumble”).^[4][6][7] The verb is inherited from Middle English murmuren,^[8] borrowed from Old French murmurer^[8][5][6][9] and directly borrowed from Latin murmurō (“to make a low sound, mutter, grumble”).^[4][8][6] The Old French noun was formed from the Old French verb,^[4][5][2] and the Latin verb from the Latin noun.^[4][2] Anglo-Norman had the noun from the mid-12th century.^[10] The Latin word is a reduplicated formation of imitative origin.^{[4][11][6][12]} Etymonline and Klein trace it to a reduplicated base Proto-Indo-European *mor-mor-,^[5][2] and similar forms include Ancient Greek μορμύρω (mormúrō, “to roar, boil”), Lithuanian murmėti (“to grumble”), Old High German murmurōn (“to murmur”), German murmeln and Dutch murmelen,^[6][2][9] with others in Sanskrit and Armenian.^[6][2][13] Barnhart and Klein find a simple form of the imitative root in Old Norse murra (“to murmur”), Dutch morren and German murren,^[6][2] and Barnhart also in Old English murcian (“to complain, grieve”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Grumbling or complaint in subdued tones, especially among a crowd: about 1385, in Chaucer's Knight's Tale.^[4][5] Barnhart finds the noun about 1380, in Chaucer's House of Fame, as continuous noise or grumbling, and dates the verb to before 1325, in the Cursor Mundi,^[6] while the revised OED and the MED begin the verb about 1390, in Chaucer's Parson's Tale.^[4][8]

Semantic evolution

Old French had already moved from an indistinct expression of feeling by many people (about 1170) to subdued discontent (about 1200) and to a muted noise (about 1230).^[4] English took the complaint first, and both noun and verb long kept it: the OED now calls the verb's "grumble" sense rare.^[4] Chaucer's verb in the Squire's Tale (about 1395) already compares talk to insects: "Dyuerse folk..murmured as dooth a swarm of been".^[8] The noun for a low continuous sound, of water or wind, follows about 1425 in Mandeville's Travels.^[4] Johnson (1755) put that sense first as "a low shrill noise" and the half-suppressed complaint second.^[14] The sense of softly spoken words appears late, in 1704 in Clarendon's History in the OED, and in the 1670s in Etymonline.^[4][5] The medical sense entered in 1821, in Forbes's translation of Laennec on auscultation, where it first meant the quiet sound of normal breathing and then an abnormal sound of the heart or vessels.^[4] In Scots the verb could be transitive, to complain against someone, and it survives in to murmur a judge, to cast doubt on a judge's integrity.^[4][3]

Timeline

• c. 1385 – noun, muttered complaint or grumbling.^[4][5]
• c. 1390 – verb, to complain in low tones.^[4][8]
• before 1393 – noun, an instance of subdued complaint, in Gower.^[4]
• c. 1395 – verb, to talk in a hushed voice, to make a low continuous sound.^[4][8]
• 1424 – Scots verb, to complain against a person.^[4]
• c. 1425 – noun, a low continuous sound.^[4] Etymonline has it by about 1400.^[5]
• c. 1460 – verb, to utter words in a subdued voice.^[4] Etymonline dates this use to the 1530s.^[5]
• before 1522 – noun, a rumour, in G. Douglas.^[4]
• 1553 – without murmur, uncomplainingly.^[4]
• 1704 – noun, words spoken softly or indistinctly.^[4] Etymonline dates this sense to the 1670s.^[5]
• 1796 – verb, with direct speech as its object, in M. G. Lewis's Monk.^[4]
• 1821 – noun, a sound heard in auscultation.^[4] Etymonline has it by 1824.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A low, continuous, indistinct sound, as of distant voices, running water or wind: the murmur of the stream behind the cottage.^[15][3][4]
2. Something said softly or barely audibly, especially among a crowd: A murmur of approval went round the hall.^[15][4]
3. A half-suppressed complaint; grumbling.^[15][3] Without a murmur means without any protest.^[4]
4. (medicine) A soft blowing sound heard through a stethoscope, usually an abnormal one over the heart: see heart murmur.^[15][4]

Verb

1. To make a low, continuous sound: The pines murmured in the evening wind.^[3][4]
2. To say something softly or indistinctly: He murmured an apology and left.^[15][4]
3. To complain in a low voice; to grumble.^[15][3][4]
4. (Scotland) To complain against someone; to accuse.^[3][4]

Word family

• murmurer
• murmuringly
• murmurous
• murmurously
• murmurless
• unmurmured
• unmurmuring

Related words

• murmuration

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
3. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
9. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
15. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins