feedback

Formsfeedbacks, feedbacking, feedbacked

1. 1
   noununcountable

   Comments that evaluate how a process or activity was carried out or what it produced.

   The manager's feedback on the report helped the team revise its approach.

   Reviewers provided detailed feedback during the editing process.

   Similarassessment, evaluation, critique, estimation

   Note

   Most of the time this is a mass noun, like advice. You give, get or receive feedback rather than "a feedback," though the plural feedbacks does exist. It sits close to critique and evaluation. Those name a judgment, while feedback is what comes back to the person doing the work. The word is simply feed plus back, a plain compound shared by every meaning on this page.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   A portion of a system's output signal that is routed back to its input to regulate or alter the system's behavior.

   Engineers added negative feedback to stabilize the amplifier's output.

   The control loop relies on feedback to keep the motor's speed constant.

   Note

   Control theory's central idea is that a measured output is routed back to the input and compared with a reference. The difference, the error signal, then steers the system toward its desired state. The term travels well beyond circuits: Oliver Sacks, in Musicophilia (2007), writes of abnormal feedback in the brain. The microphone howl is this same loop left unchecked.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The high-pitched howling noise produced when a loop forms between a microphone and a speaker.

   The singer winced as feedback howled through the venue.

   Sound engineers adjust the levels carefully to avoid feedback.

   Note

   The sound engineer's old enemy goes by several other names: howlround, howlback, audio feedback, the Larsen effect. Sound from the loudspeaker re-enters the microphone and is amplified again. It builds at whatever frequencies the loop gain exceeds unity, which is why it can swell from a ring to a screech. The noun often modifies another noun, as in a feedback screech.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To provide someone with informational comments or assessments.

   The supervisor will feedback the staff once the survey closes.

   Managers are expected to feedback their teams regularly.

   Similarbrief, update, inform

   Note

   The office verb takes the person as its object: employees feedbacked him, managers feedback their teams. Despite the feed inside it, the past tense is feedbacked, not fed back, because the word inflects as one regular verb. Compare the conveying sense, where the object is the message itself rather than the person who receives it.

5. 5
   verbintransitive

   Of an instrument, to produce a high-frequency sound when its amplifier's output drives the instrument's sound generator into vibration.

   He let his guitar feedback for several seconds to end the song.

   The amp was cranked so high the bass started to feedback.

   Similarhowl, squeal

   Note

   Where the howl is something to be avoided, this is a technique a player allows on purpose. Amplified sound shakes the instrument back into vibration, and the note sustains and climbs. The instrument is the subject: the guitar feedbacks, the bass starts to feedback. The participle works well as an adjective, as in a riot of feedbacking guitars.

6. 6
   verbtransitive

   To convey information by means of a specialized communications channel.

   The probe feedbacks telemetry to engineers on the ground.

   Ground stations feedback the signals to the operations team.

   Similarrelay, transmit, send

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