by Kate Woodford
In this post we look at a range of words and phrases that we use to describe noise and the absence of noise. Starting with complete quiet, we sometimes use the noun hush to describe silence: A hush fell over the room as the bride walked in./There was a deathly hush (=complete silence) after the announcement.
A slight noise that you cannot hear well may be described as faint or low: There’s a faint hissing noise coming from behind the TV./They spoke in low voices and I couldn’t hear what they were saying? (Of course, ‘low’ used to describe a voice can also mean ‘near the bottom of a range of sounds’.) A sound that is quiet and not clear may be described as muffled: I could hear muffled voices next door, but I couldn’t make out any words. A muted noise, meanwhile, is more quiet than you would expect, sometimes suggesting a lack of enthusiasm: The applause, when it came, was muted.
A loud noise that is unpleasant and continues for a while may be called a din or a (informal) racket: They were making such a racket outside that I couldn’t sleep./I had to shout to make myself heard above the din. A commotion is a continuous, loud noise that suggests confusion or arguments: What was all the commotion about next door? A hubbub is similar and suggests the noise of people talking excitedly: It was hard to hear what anyone was saying in the general hubbub. A continuous loud noise made by hard objects hitting each other is sometimes called a clatter: The clatter coming from the kitchen made conversation almost impossible.
There are some very common phrases that relate to sound and the lack of it. If a place is so noisy that you cannot give your attention to anything, you might complain that you can’t hear yourself think: Kids, can you stop shouting, please? I can’t hear myself think! A radio/television/hi-fi, etc. that is extremely loud is sometimes described as blaring (out) or being at full blast: My granddad had the television on at full blast./Music was blaring out from speakers at the side of the pool. On the other hand, to describe a place or a situation that was completely quiet, with no one speaking, you might say you could have heard a pin drop: We all stood in stunned silence. You could have heard a pin drop.
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Reblogged this on tanyaleonova2 and commented:
You need to be really lazy not to learn a language with all the quality resources available on the net these days. Spare few minutes to subscribe to this Cambridge online dictionary blog – you’ll love it. Great resource for teachers too!
“a deathly silence”
“I heard a penetrating scream”. You can almost hear it, can’t you?
” hustle and bustle”
” The sound of your voice still echoes in my dreams…..”
weird
“an oppressive silence”
”ominous silence”
informal Arabic we say you can hear the sound of the fly when silence prevails.
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