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mussitation

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Etymology

Learned borrowing from Latin mussitātiō (“soft noise made by dogs, or (Late Latin) people”) + English -ion (suffix denoting a condition or state). Mussitātiō is derived from mussitātus (“kept quiet; having been kept quiet; murmured, muttered; having been muttered”) (see further at mussitate) + -iō (suffix forming abstract nouns from verbs).^[1]^[2]

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /mʌsɪˈteɪʃn̩/
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˌmʌsɪˈteɪʃ(ə)n/
Rhymes: -eɪʃən
Hyphenation: mus‧sit‧at‧ion

Noun

mussitation (countable and uncountable, plural mussitations)

(chiefly archaic or obsolete) Speech conducted in a hushed manner, akin to a murmur or a whisper.
- 1989, Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel:
  The mussitation of the crowd dropped instantly.
(medicine) A comatose patient's action of forming words with their lips without producing sound.

Related terms

mussitant (obsolete, rare)
mussitate (obsolete)

References

^ “† mussitation, n.”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford: Oxford University Press, March 2019.
^ “mussitation, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.

Further reading

“mussitation”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

French

Pronunciation

Audio: (file)

Noun

mussitation f (plural mussitations)

(medicine) mussitation

Further reading

“mussitation”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

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