Sough
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A murmuring sound; rushing, rustling, or whistling sound.
"[...] Arthur; a fearful night it was: there was a sough in the air, a sound drawing nigh like that of a host marching:- — but you're looking pale and forwrought, man; is any thing ailing ye?"
- 2 A small drain; an adit.
- 3 A gentle breeze; a waft; a breath.
- 4 A (deep) sigh.
- 5 A vague rumour. Scotland, obsolete
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- 6 A cant or whining mode of speaking, especially in preaching or praying. Scotland, obsolete
- 1 To make a soft rustling or murmuring sound.
"I lay awake for a while that evening, listening to the soughing of the wind high in the pines, realizing sadly that we must now return to civilization."
- 2 To drain.
- 3 make a murmuring sound wordnet
- 1 A hamlet in Kelbrook and Sough parish, Pendle borough, Lancashire, England (OS grid ref SD9045).
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"Your voice is a voice from the days that are gone, and the old tongue comes back to me, with the sound of the piper on the hill and the harper in the hall, with the sough of the summer wind in the fir trees, and the lash of the waves on the rocks."
Etymology
From Middle English *sough, swough, swogh, from Middle English swoȝen, swowen, from Old English swōgan (“to make a sound; move with noise; rush; roar”), from Proto-West Germanic *swōgan, from Proto-Germanic *swōganą from Proto-Indo-European *sweh₂gʰ-, same source as English echo (via Ancient Greek). Cognate with Scots souch (“sough”), Icelandic súgur (“a rushing sound, rustle”). Noun replaced Middle English swei, sweȝ from Old English swēg. More at swoon.
From Middle English sough (whence also Scots sheuch (“ditch”)), from Old English *sōh, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *sīk (“watercourse”); compare dialectal Dutch zoeg (“ditch”), and English sitch.
Related phrases
More for "sough"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.