murmuration
UK/ˌmɜːməˈɹeɪʃən/US/ˌmɝməˈɹeɪʃən/
murmuration noun: an act or instance of murmuring.
Noun
murmuration (countable and uncountable, plural murmurations)
- An act or instance of murmuring.
- A flock of starlings, in particular when swarming in swirling patterns.
- "Oh! I wasted most of my morning crawling to a murmuration of starlings, which I foolishly mistook for congregation of plover."1893 September 27, The Bazaar, the Exchange and Mart, London, page 800, column 3
- The same dynamics can be seen in starlings: On clear winter evenings, murmurations of the tiny blackish birds gather in Rome’s sunset skies, wheeling about like rustling cloth.2013 March 19, Ed Yong, “How the Science of Swarms Can Help Us Fight Cancer and Predict the Future”, in WIRED, archived from the original on 22 Feb 2015
- An emergent order in a multi-agent social system.
Forms of murmuration
| plural | murmurations |
|---|
Origin of murmuration
1350–1400; Medieval Latin murmuratio (“murmuring, grumbling”), equivalent to murmur + -ation. The “flock of starlings” sense is probably derived from the sound of the very large groups that starlings form at dusk.
Words that rhyme with murmuration
- station
- collation
- accommodation
- presentation
- derivation
- information
- modulation
- translation
- application
- fixation
- generation
- orientation
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- citation
- combination
- communication
- conjugation
- constellation
- determination
- elevation
- operation
- relation
- reservation
- alternation
- condensation
- conversation
- deviation
- excavation
- foliation
- formation
- foundation
- incarnation
- interpretation
- representation
- retardation
- speculation
- termination
- abbreviation
- adaptation
- articulation
- bifurcation
- concentration
- congregation
- declination
- degradation
- expectation
- extenuation
- gradation
- observation
- population
- preparation
- reconciliation
- rotation
- separation
- situation
- vexation
- vindication
- accumulation
- administration
- aggregation
- appropriation
Questions about murmuration
- What does murmuration mean?
- Murmuration means an act or instance of murmuring.
- What part of speech is murmuration?
- Murmuration is a noun.
- How do you pronounce murmuration?
- Murmuration is pronounced /ˌmɝməˈɹeɪʃən/ (US).
- What is the plural of murmuration?
- The plural of murmuration is murmurations.
Words near murmuration in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: murmuration (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “murmuration.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/murmuration. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.