sounding

English

Pronunciation

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) enPR: soundʹĭng, IPA^(key): /ˈsaʊndɪŋ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aʊndɪŋ

Etymology 1

sound (“produce a sound”) +‎ -ing.

Noun

sounding (plural soundings)

1. The action of the verb to sound.
   • c. 1650, John Lightfoot, The Temple-Service

     And thus did the trumpets sound one-and-twenty blasts every day; […] three soundings at the three pausings of the music, […]

   • 1979 August, Graham Burtenshaw and Michael S. Welch, “O.V.S. Bulleid's SR loco-hauled coaches - 1”, in Railway World, page 394:

     In the course of his soundings, Sir Herbert Walker had heard favourable reports of O.V.S. Bulleid, currently Principal Assistant to Gresley on the LNER.

Adjective

sounding (not comparable)

1. Emitting a sound.

   The sounding bell woke me up.

2. Sonorous.
   • 1668, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, M. DC. LXVI. […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], OCLC 1064438096, (please specify the stanza number):

     sounding words

   • 1849, Edgar Allan Poe, Annabel Lee

     In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Verb

sounding

1. present participle of sound

   Little Mary was sounding very sleepy, so I tucked her in bed.

   "Assist"'s sense ‘to be present (at a ceremony, entertainment, etc.)’, now uncommon and sounding affected, is a Gallicism.

Etymology 2

From sound (“examine with the instrument called a sound, or by auscultation or percussion”) +‎ -ing.

Noun

sounding (plural soundings)

1. Test made with a probe or sonde.
   • 2011, John P. Rafferty, Oceans and Oceanography (page 189)

     Soundings showed wide variations in depths of water, and from the dredgings of the bottom came new types of sediment […]

   • 2020 June 25, National Weather Service Boston 9:52 AM forecast discussion:

     Morning sounding at Chatham showed dry adiabatic lapse rate all the way to 700 mb this morning […]

2. A measured depth of water.

   The sailor took a sounding every five minutes

3. The act of inserting of a thin metal rod into the urethra of the penis for medical or sexual purposes
4. (chiefly in the plural) Any place or part of the ocean, or other water, where a sounding line will reach the bottom.
   • Spanish Ladies, naval song, chorus

     We'll rant and we'll roar across the salt seas; Until we strike soundings in the Channel of old England

5. The sand, shells, etc. brought up by the sounding lead when it has touched bottom.

Translations

test made with a probe

• Catalan: sondar (ca)
• German: Sondierung (de) f

• Portuguese: sondagem f
• Spanish: sondeo (es) m, sonda (es) f
• Turkish: sondaj (tr)

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for sounding in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

Anagrams

• Guindons, undoings