| / English Dictionary |
SOUNDING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
The act of measuring depth of water (usually with a sounding line)
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("sounding" is a kind of...):
measure; measurement; measuring; mensuration (the act or process of assigning numbers to phenomena according to a rule)
Derivation:
sound (measure the depth of (a body of water) with a sounding line)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A measure of the depth of water taken with a sounding line
Classified under:
Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects
Hypernyms ("sounding" is a kind of...):
deepness; depth (the extent downward or backward or inward)
Derivation:
sound (measure the depth of (a body of water) with a sounding line)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Making or having a sound as specified; used as a combining form
Example:
harsh-sounding
Classified under:
Similar:
audible; hearable (heard or perceptible by the ear)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Having volume or deepness
Example:
the sounding cataract haunted me like a passion
Classified under:
Similar:
full ((of sound) having marked deepness and body)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Appearing to be as specified; usually used as combining forms
Example:
taken in by high-sounding talk
Synonyms:
looking; sounding
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
superficial (concerned with or comprehending only what is apparent or obvious; not deep or penetrating emotionally or intellectually)
III. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb sound
Context examples:
I am confident that all the drums and trumpets of a royal army, beating and sounding together just at your ears, could not equal it.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
In the silence that ensued, my aunt walked gravely up to Mr. Dick, without at all hurrying herself, and gave him a hug and a sounding kiss.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
"More cruel than ever. Don't you see how I'm pining away?" and Laurie gave his broad chest a sounding slap and heaved a melodramatic sigh.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
Meanwhile, X-ray astronomers were getting their first look at the sky using sounding rockets and orbiting satellites, which revealed a million-degree X-ray glow coming from all directions.
(Evidence for supernovas near Earth, NASA)
They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture in the hope of finding them.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
This was not the map we found in Billy Bones's chest, but an accurate copy, complete in all things—names and heights and soundings—with the single exception of the red crosses and the written notes.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Among the more unique data sets collected by Juno during its first scientific sweep by Jupiter was that acquired by the mission's Radio/Plasma Wave Experiment (Waves), which recorded ghostly- sounding transmissions emanating from above the planet.
(Jupiter's North Pole Unlike Anything Encountered in Solar System, NASA)
Radar-sounding scans of the area have suggested the presence of low-density volcanic deposits or water ice below the surface, but if the detected hydrogen were buried ice within the top meter of the surface, there would be more than would fit into pore space in soil.
(A Fresh Look at Older Data Yields a Surprise Near the Martian Equator, NASA)
On the contrary, when he saw more of Captain Wentworth, saw him repeatedly by daylight, and eyed him well, he was very much struck by his personal claims, and felt that his superiority of appearance might be not unfairly balanced against her superiority of rank; and all this, assisted by his well-sounding name, enabled Sir Walter at last to prepare his pen, with a very good grace, for the insertion of the marriage in the volume of honour.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
You shall soon learn what shuddering is, thought he, and secretly went there before him; and when the boy was at the top of the tower and turned round, and was just going to take hold of the bell rope, he saw a white figure standing on the stairs opposite the sounding hole.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
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