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of speech, without tone, or proper vocal sound; voiceless; unintonated; nonvocal; atonic; whispered; aspirated; sharp; hard, as f, p, s, etc.; -- opposed to sonant. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§169, 179, 180.

Whispering. [R.] "The soft susurrant sigh." Poetry of Anti- Jacobin.

A whispering; a soft murmur. "Soft susurrations of the trees." Howell.

In the manner of a whisper. [Obs.]

Whispering; rustling; full of whispering sounds. [R.]

The act of whispering; a whisper; a murmur. De Quincey. The soft susurrus and sighs of the branches. Longfellow.

to talk; loquacious. The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whispering lovers made. Goldsmith.

ill I be greater than thou. Gen. xli. 40. To mold a mighty state's decrees, And shape the whisper of the throne. Tennyson.

ore known; news. I shall make my master glad with these tidings. Shak. Full well the busy whisper, circling round, Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned. Goldsmith.

ckle. Sir W. Scott. And now and then an ample tear trilled down Her delicate cheek. Shak. Whispered sounds Of waters, trilling from the riven stone. Glover.

uneasiness; vexation; calamity. Lest the fiend . . . some new trouble raise. Milton. Foul whisperings are abroad; unnatural deeds Do breed unnatural troubles. Shak.

delity; constancy; steadfastness; faithfulness. Alas! they had been friends in youth, But whispering tongues can poison truth. Coleridge.

e floods raised in little brooks by a sudden rain; they are quickly up. Dryden. A general whisper ran among the country people, that Sir Roger was up. Addison. Let us, then, be up and doing, With a heart for any fate. Longfellow.

nser. He useth every day to a merchant's house. B. Jonson. Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use Of shades, and wanton winds, and gushing brooks. Milton.

To produce an oscillating or quivering effect of sound; as, a whisper vibrates on the ear. Pope.

rance; tone; -- distinguished from mere breath sound as heard in f, s, sh, etc., and also whisper.

A vocal, or sometimes a whispered, sound modified by resonance in the oral passage, the peculiar resonance in each case giving to each several vowel its distinctive character or quality as a sound of speech; -- distinguished from a consonant in that the latter, whether made with or without vocality, derives its charact…

An ordinary whisper exaggerated so as to produce the hoarse sound known as the "stage whisper." It is a forcible whisper with some admixture of tone.

, as in the cheeks, or of the tinge of blood color; pale; pallid; as, white with fear. Or whispering with white lips, "The foe! They come! they come!" Byron.