Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To spread news of; repeat.
  • noun Medicine An abnormal sound heard in auscultation.
  • noun A rumor.
  • noun A din; a clamor.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To announce with noise; report; noise abroad.
  • To give forth sound; sound.
  • noun Report; rumor; fame.
  • noun A noise; a loud sound; a din.
  • noun [Mod. F., pron. brwē.] In pathology, the name given to sounds of various nature, in general abnormal, produced in the body, or evoked in it, by percussion or succussion: used to some extent in English.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun Report; rumor; fame.
  • noun (Med.) An abnormal sound of several kinds, heard on auscultation.
  • transitive verb To report; to noise abroad.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun archaic Rumour, talk, hearsay.
  • verb US, archaic British to spread, promulgate or disseminate a rumour, news etc.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb tell or spread rumors

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English, noise, from Old French, past participle of bruire, to roar, from Vulgar Latin *brūgīre (blend of Latin rūgīre and Vulgar Latin *bragere, to bray, of Celtic origin).]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French bruit.

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Examples

  • These he laid on a table until he had placed his head close to Kent's hearty listening to what he called the bruit -- the rushing of blood through the aneurismal sac.

    The Valley of Silent Men James Oliver Curwood 1903

  • 22 Behold, the noise of the bruit is come, and a great commotion out of the north country, to make the cities of Judah desolate, and a den of dragons.

    Commentary on the Whole Bible Volume IV (Isaiah to Malachi) 1721

  • Exceptions: Your doctor hears a swishing sound, called a bruit, with a stethoscope, or you have had a stroke or mini-stroke.7.

    8 medical tests you don't need 2009

  • Exceptions: Your doctor hears a swishing sound, called a bruit, with a stethoscope, or you have had a stroke or mini-stroke. 7.

    8 medical tests you don't need 2009

  • I am heading to your region soon to get away from the Paris "bruit", and maybe I will run into you and your mom in one of your friendly villages you frequent.

    gens du voyage - French Word-A-Day 2009

  • I am heading to your region soon to get away from the Paris "bruit", and maybe I will run into you and your mom in one of your friendly villages you frequent.

    gens du voyage - French Word-A-Day 2009

  • Randolph, though an egregious gossip, says of the Four Maries, "they are all good," but Knox writes that "the ballads of that age" did witness to the "bruit" or reputation of these maidens.

    John Knox and the Reformation Andrew Lang 1878

  • But the most remarkable feature of this strange assembly amid all the voting and "bruit" is the dramatic silence of the

    Royal Edinburgh Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets George Reid 1862

  • Heaven, I am a better Christian man than thou and thy fellowship; for the 'bruit' goeth shrewdly out, that the most holy Order of the Temple of Zion nurseth not a few heretics within its bosom, and that Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert is of the number. "

    Ivanhoe Walter Scott 1801

  • I had no mentation the promulgate would spread b bruit about into notable notice such irrefutable reactions in people, but I acumen unquestionably strongly with compliments to self-determination of language and allowing ideas to be unconstrainedly circulated.

    The Culture of Sharing: Why Releasing Copyright Will Be the Smartest Thing You Do | Write to Done 2009

Comments

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  • I always see this only in the past tense, e.g. "He had it bruited about that the child was illegitimate."

    November 11, 2007

  • Also a noun (archaic).

    December 4, 2007

  • Then who says Miss Clarissa Harlowe is the paragon of virtue? Is virtue itself?

    All who know her, and have heard of her, it will be answered.

    Common bruit!--- Is virtue to be established by common bruit only?...

    Lovelace to Belford, Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

    December 4, 2007

  • Bruit is also the term applied to the sound heard (with a stethoscope) over a narrowed artery (for example, the carotid). It is caused by turbulent blood flow.

    December 4, 2007

  • ...similar disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual in the fishery...

    - Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 41

    July 25, 2008

  • "An attack on Iraq has been bruited about ever since President Bush invoked an axis of evil in his State of the Union address to Congress in January."

    - Joyce Appleby and Ellen Carol Dubois, `Congress must reassert authority to declare war', The Record (Bergen County, NJ), 20 September 2002.

    August 20, 2008

  • Miss Clarissa Harlowe's reputation was besmirched by having it bruited about that she had an illegitimate child last June, allegedly fathered by that buckra down at the mill.

    Lawd sakes, Miss Clarissa, what de world comin' to dese days?

    August 20, 2008