sounder

English

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsaʊndɚ/
• Rhymes: -aʊndə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

From Middle English *soundere, from Old English ġesundra, from Proto-Germanic *sundizô, equivalent to sound +‎ -er (comparative suffix).

Adjective

sounder

1. comparative form of sound: more sound
   • 1961 April, “Talking of Trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 199:

     The Northern Division Traffic Manager has said that there is no present intention of terminating the service, but the hopes previously entertained of expanding it cannot be entertained until it is operating on a sounder economic basis.

Etymology 2

From Middle English soundar, sownere, equivalent to sound +‎ -er.

Noun

sounder (plural sounders)

1. Something or someone who makes a sound.

   a telephone with an electronic sounder

2. An instrument used in telegraphy in place of a register, the communications being read by sound.
3. (medicine, dated, plural only) A stethoscope.

Derived terms

• depth sounder
• echo sounder
• telegraph sounder

Translations

sounding device

• Finnish: luotain (fi)

Etymology 3

From French sonder.

Noun

sounder (plural sounders)

1. (nautical) A device for making soundings at sea.
2. (nautical) A person who takes soundings.
3. (fishing) A fishfinder.

Etymology 4

Inherited from Middle English soundre, from Old Northern French sondre, from a Germanic language (compare Old English sunor).

Noun

sounder (plural sounders)

1. A group of wild boar.
   • 1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter II, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone):

     It was not only that there were wild boars in it, whose sounders would at this season be furiously rooting about, nor that one of the surviving wolves might be slinking behind any tree, with pale eyes and slavering chops.

2. A young boar.

Anagrams

• Oresund, enduros, resound, undoers, unsored

Middle English

Noun

sounder

1. Alternative form of soundre