Rustlynge

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. A faint, dry crackling or whispering sound made by leaves, paper, or cloth moving against one another
2. The light, brushing noise produced when dry leaves, fabric, or grass shift and scrape together
3. A quiet, papery sound of things stirring or sliding against each other, such as foliage in a breeze

Etymology: The sound of dry leaves or stiff silk is one of those things English has long tried to capture with a word that sounds like it. Scholars generally treat "rustle" as imitative, meaning its sound was shaped to mimic the noise it names, and the medieval spelling "rustlynge" is an earlier form of the verbal noun, "rustling," which names the sound itself or the act of making it. Rustling later acquired a very different sense. In the American West, to "rustle" came to mean stealing livestock, probably from the older idea of moving about busily or quietly, though the exact path is uncertain. The leafy hush and the cattle thief share a word, but the link between them is not well documented.