A.Word.A.Day --psithurism

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Jun 22, 2026

This week’s theme
Even more unusual synonyms

This week’s words
psithurism

Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars, 1891

Art: Claude Monet

Previous week’s theme
Unusual synonyms

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A.Word.A.Day

with Anu Garg

Last week we opened the thesaurus. This week we found the secret drawer inside it. We bring you unusual synonyms of last week’s unusual synonyms: words twice-removed, dusted lightly, and released back into the wild.

Why use a common word when an unusual one is just the thing? And why use an unusual word when you can find one so rare it practically needs a docent?

Try one in something you write this week: an email, an office memo, a love letter, or that novel or PhD thesis waiting patiently while you conduct advanced research in procrastination.

An important note: There are rarely true synonyms. Beautiful and pretty are synonyms, but you can’t always replace one with the other. It’s pretty obvious, but we felt we should mention it anyway.

psithurism

PRONUNCIATION:

(SITH-yuh-riz-uhm)

MEANING:

noun: A rustling or whispering sound, especially of leaves in the wind.

ETYMOLOGY:

From Greek psithurizein (to whisper), from psithuros (whispering, slanderous). Earliest documented use: 1848.

NOTES:

The Greek root also carried the meaning of slanderous. So the next time you hear psithurism in the forest, just know the trees are probably gossiping about you.

USAGE:

“Do different trees result in different types of psithurism? Perform your own research and find out! Spend time listening to the wind through trees in different areas of a local park or forest.”
S.R. Rangarajan; Take a Walk in the Woods; Scriptor; 2021.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure, for death is not an adventure to those who stand face to face with it. It will try simply to tell of a generation of men who, even though they may have escaped its shells, were destroyed by the war. -Erich Maria Remarque, novelist (22 Jun 1898-1970), in "All Quiet on the Western Front"

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