sound

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   Something that you hear; what is produced by vibrations and heard by the ear.

   We strained to hear the faint sound of the owl's wings.

2. 2
   adj

   Sensible, reliable, and likely to be correct.

   She gave me some sound advice about choosing a career.

3. 3
   adj

   In good condition; healthy and not damaged.

   The old bridge is still structurally sound.

4. 4
   adj

   Safe and secure, especially financially.

   They made several sound investments over the years.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Sound has four unrelated histories in English. The word for noise entered Middle English from Latin sonus; the adjective meaning “healthy” or “undamaged” comes from Old English gesund and formerly meant especially “uninjured,” later extending to well-founded opinions. The verb meaning “measure the depth of water” comes through Old French sonder from elements related to Latin sub, “below,” and unda, “wave.” The noun for a narrow stretch of water comes from Old Norse sund, “swimming, strait,” and is related to swim.

* Noun: from Middle English sownde, alteration of soun, borrowed from Anglo-Norman sun, soun, Old French son, from accusative of Latin sonus, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *swenh₂- (“to sound, resound”). * Verb: from Middle English sownden, sounen, borrowed from Anglo-Norman suner, sounder, Old French soner (modern sonner), from Latin sonō. * The hypercorrect -d appears in the fifteenth century. (Compare dialectal drownd, gownd for the same development.) Displaced native Middle English swei, from Old English swēġ, from Proto-Germanic *swōgiz.

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary