sound

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   thorough

   a sound thrashing

2. 2
   adj

   free from moral defect

   The student had a sound character.

3. 3
   adj

   financially secure and safe

   sound investments

4. 4
   adj

   having legal efficacy or force

   a sound title to the property

5. 5
   adj

   logically valid

   a sound argument

6. 6
   noun

   the particular auditory effect produced by a given cause

   the sound of rain on the roof

7. 7
   noun

   the subjective sensation of hearing something

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

8. 8
   noun

   the sudden occurrence of an audible event

   the sound awakened them

Etymology

* 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.