Etymology of Rumor/Fame

RUMOR (n.)

Current usage comes from the late fourteenth century meaning “a statement or report with or without foundation but often presented as fact.” It comes from the Old French rumur, meaning “commotion or noise.” The Latin rumorem, “noise, clamor, hearsay, popular opinion,” is related to ravus, “hoarse,” referring to the voice after talking too much, which in turn comes from the PIE root *reu- meaning “bellow.” From the 1540s, the word rumorous referred to someone making a loud and confused sound. (See also: FAME.)

FAME (n.)

From Latin fama which meant “rumor, good reputation,” and/or “scandal or ill-repute,” from PIE root *bha- “speak, tell, or say.”

In Roman mythology, the goddess Fama was the personification of rumor. Virgil describes her in the Aeneid as a birdlike monster with countless eyes, lips, tongues, and ears—as numerous as her feathers—who travels on land but with a head in the clouds.

Sentences using RUMOR:

• “Not fair that a rumor can be good and bad, helpful and hurtful, revealing and overexposing.”
• “I did not ask for rumors to be spread like butter, to flow like a hot Boston Molasses Disaster, and yet they did. They seeped. Rumors drove Poppy from me.”
• “She is of me; how is she so unlike me? Pieces of Poppy are hidden in rumor. To uncover them is, maybe, to understand her.”