radar

Pluralradars (some meanings)

Formsradars, radaring, radared

1. 1
   noununcountable

   A way of finding far-off objects and measuring their position, speed, or other properties by sending out radio waves, usually microwaves, and analyzing the echoes that bounce back.

   Like a bat navigating in darkness by listening for the echoes of its own calls.

   Air traffic controllers rely on radar to track every aircraft within their sector.

   Modern radar can detect a small drone several miles away.

   Note

   Here the word names the technique itself, and it takes no article: a navy finds a fleet using radar, and controllers track aircraft on radar. That uncountable use separates it from a single installed unit, which is counted (a new radar, three radars). The word began as the capitalized acronym RADAR and settled into an ordinary lowercase noun so completely that it now takes plurals and even works as a verb.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   An installation or single unit of a radio-wave detection system, including its transmitting and receiving equipment.

   Like a single weather station, but one that builds a picture of its surroundings from bouncing radio signals.

   Technicians spent the week repairing the harbor's aging radar.

   The destroyer's bridge housed three separate radars linked to one display.

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A category of detection system that uses reflected radio waves, distinguished by platform, configuration, frequency, power, and similar technical attributes.

   Like the way cars range from compact city models to heavy trucks, radars come in forms suited to very different tasks.

   Phased-array radars can scan the sky electronically without moving any parts.

   Air defense units field a long-range radar designed to track ballistic missiles.

   Note

   A radar in this sense is a design rather than a device. An entirely new radar is something a defense ministry funds and develops, not something bolted onto a mast. Because a single installed unit is also countable, a new radar can mean either one. The verb nearby usually settles it: develop and fund point to the type, while fit, repair or upgrade point to the unit.

4. 4
   nounfigurativelycountable

   A keen, almost instinctive ability to detect or sense something, especially what others fail to notice.

   Like a watchdog that senses an intruder long before anyone hears a sound.

   Years on the trading floor gave her an uncanny radar for shifting market sentiment.

   Editors rely on a finely tuned radar that flags a fabricated quote instantly.

   Similarinstinct, nose, intuition, antenna

   Note

   A figurative transfer that usually takes for before its object, as in a radar for hidden alliances or for a fabricated quote. Sports writing bends it toward aim rather than detection. Jamie Jackson, reporting on Manchester United in 2021, writes that Cavani's radar was awry when the striker missed a chance set up for him. Used this way, it describes a player's accuracy in front of goal, not his awareness.

5. 5
   verbtransitive

   To examine or track something using radar, or to sense it as if by radar.

   Like a fisherman sweeping sonar across the seabed to locate a school of fish.

   The destroyer radared every vessel within fifty miles of the strait.

   Some animals seem to radar their prey through sheer instinct, sensing movement in total darkness.

   Similartrack, detect, scan, sense

   Note

   The verb keeps a single r in every form: radars, radaring, radared, with no doubling of the final consonant. It is at home in talk of speed enforcement, where an officer radars a driver from a parked patrol car, as in Brian Jonathan Wolk's Ohio Traffic Tickets are for the Birds (2002). There the object is the person or vehicle being measured.

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