FromMiddle Englishrumour, fromOld Frenchrumour,rumor, fromLatinrūmor(“common talk”), ultimately fromProto-Indo-European*rewH-(“to shout, roar”).
rumour (countable anduncountable,pluralrumours)
- British,Canada,New Zealand,Australia, andIreland spelling ofrumor
1922,Michael Arlen, “1/1/2”, in“Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days[1]:There wererumours, new rumours every morning, delightful and outrageous rumours, so that the lumps in the porridge were swallowed without comment and the fish-cakes were eaten without contumely.
1954 March, W. A. Tuplin, “Recollections of the Wirral Railway”, inRailway Magazine, page167:"Keep off Conductor Rails" said red-painted notices at the platform ends, for third-rails were laid in many places even where electric trains never normally ran, and there had been manyrumours of impending electrification of the Wirral, as a natural extension of the Mersey system, a quarter of a century before the change was actually made.
1969, Peter Vansittart,Pastimes of a Red Summer: A Novel[2], Owen,→ISBN,→LCCN,→OCLC, page140:I myself gave support to the summoning of the Estates General ... as merely mistaken . Similarly it might be held that Paradise originated in arumour invented in hell to make society the more interesting . ' ' We need a saviour .
- (obsolete) A prolonged, indistinct noise.
1599 (first performance),William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, inMr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, andEd[ward] Blount, published1623,→OCLC,[Act II, scene iv],page18:Prithee, listen well; / I heard a bustling rumour like a fray, / And the wind brings it from the Capitol.
rumour (third-person singular simple presentrumours,present participlerumouring,simple past and past participlerumoured)
- Commonwealth standard spelling ofrumor.
1961 November, “Talking of Trains: Drastic cuts in Scotland?”, inTrains Illustrated, page644:Two of the four main routes over the Border wererumoured to be threatened with withdrawal of, or heavy cuts in, passenger services.
