correspondents, therefore, remind me that there is a French word,
_noise_, I must remind them that it contains not one element of our
English word. Richardson gives the French word, but evidently discards
it, preferring the immediate derivation from "_noy_, that which noies or
annoys." I confess I do not understand his argument; but it was
referring to this that I said that our only known process would make a
plural noun of it. I have an impression that I have met with "annoys"
used by poetical license for "annoyances."

"Noise" has never been used in the sense of the French word in this
country. If derived immediately from the French, it is hardly probable
that it should so entirely have lost every particle of its original
meaning. With us it is either _a loud sound_, or _fame, report, rumour_,
being in this sense rendered in the Latin by the same two words, _fama,
rumor_, as News. The former sense is strictly consequential to the
latter, which I believe to be the original signification, as shown in
its use in the following passages:--

"At the same time it was noised abroad in the realme"

_Holinshed_.

Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies
instantly.

_Ant. and Cleo._, Act i. Sc. 2.

_Cre_. What was his cause of anger?
_Ser_. The noise goes, this.