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RUSTLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The stealing of cattle
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("rustling" is a kind of...):
larceny; stealing; theft; thievery; thieving (the act of taking something from someone unlawfully)
Derivation:
rustle (take illegally)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A light noise, like the noise of silk clothing or leaves blowing in the wind
Synonyms:
rustle; rustling; whisper; whispering
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("rustling" is a kind of...):
noise (sound of any kind (especially unintelligible or dissonant sound))
Derivation:
rustle (make a dry crackling sound)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Characterized by soft sounds
Example:
a slow sad susurrous rustle like the wind fingering the pines
Synonyms:
murmurous; rustling; soughing; susurrous
Classified under:
Similar:
soft ((of sound) relatively low in volume)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb rustle
Context examples:
They had gone rustling away as if their little dresses were made of autumn-leaves: and they came rustling back, in like manner.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy, who was apt to get hysterical in the excitement of the moment.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener’s son jumped up and shot an arrow at it.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Then, the flight grew lower and the circle narrower, until they were whizzing round and round us, the dry, rustling flap of their huge slate-colored wings filling the air with a volume of sound that made me think of Hendon aerodrome upon a race day.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
How very, very happy they must be! and Jo laid the rustling sheets together with a careful hand, as one might shut the covers of a lovely romance, which holds the reader fast till the end comes, and he finds himself alone in the workaday world again.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in—He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
As Meg went rustling after, with her long skirts trailing, her earrings tinkling, her curls waving, and her heart beating, she felt as if her fun had really begun at last, for the mirror had plainly told her that she was 'a little beauty'.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
The Buchanans' house floated suddenly toward us through the dark rustling trees. Tom stopped beside the porch and looked up at the second floor where two windows bloomed with light among the vines.
(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)
