# resonance

Pronunciation: say "REZ-uh-nuhns" /ˈɹɛzənəns/

## Noun

1. Something that calls up an association or a strong emotion, so that it strikes a chord with people.
   - Simple: Something that brings other things to mind or makes people feel strongly.
   - _Despite its clumsy plot, the novel achieves a quiet emotional resonance in its final chapters._
   - _Coming a week after the floods, the mayor's words about rebuilding took on a sharper political resonance._
2. The quality of giving out or echoing a deep, full, lasting sound, as a voice, a room, or a hollow object can.
   - Simple: The quality of making a deep, full sound that seems to ring and last.
   - _Stone vaulting gives the cathedral a remarkable depth and resonance._
   - _Years of voice training gave the actor's delivery a warmth and resonance that filled the theater._
3. A full, ringing sound, echo, or reverberation, such as the one made by blowing over the top of a bottle.
   - Simple: A deep, ringing sound or echo, like the one made by blowing over the top of a bottle.
   - _The slammed door sent a dull resonance through the empty house._
   - _Long after the gong was struck, its resonances lingered in the temple courtyard._
4. The strengthening or prolonging of a musical tone by sympathetic vibration, when another body vibrates in response to it.
   - Simple: A musical note becoming louder or lasting longer because another object shakes in time with it.
   - _Builders of the viola d'amore strung sympathetic wires beneath the fingerboard to give each note added resonance._
   - _A well-made violin body produces resonances that reinforce certain notes and let them carry to the back of the hall._
5. The growth in amplitude of a system's oscillation when a periodic force acts on it at a frequency close to the system's own natural frequency.
   - Simple: The growth of shaking or swinging when a thing is pushed again and again at about its natural rhythm.
   - _Engineers fitted dampers to the tower to keep resonance from amplifying its sway in high winds._
   - _At resonance, even a small periodic driving force can produce very large oscillations._
6. The property of a compound that can be pictured as two structures identical except in how their electrons are distributed.
   - Simple: A property of a chemical that can be drawn in two ways, the same except for where its electrons are.
   - _Resonance spreads the negative charge over both oxygen atoms of the acetate ion, stabilizing it._
   - _Benzene is often drawn as a hexagon with a circle inside to show its resonance._

## Other meanings

- (noun) An influence of the gravitational forces of one orbiting object on the orbit of another, causing periodic perturbations.
- (noun) The condition where the inductive and capacitive reactances have equal magnitude.
- (noun) The sound produced by a hollow body part such as the chest cavity upon auscultation, especially that produced while the patient is speaking.
- (noun) A short-lived subatomic particle or state of atomic excitation that results from the collision of atomic particles.
- (noun) A quality of human relationship with the world.

## Origin

From Old French resonance (modern French résonance), which comes from Latin resonantia ("echo"). That word is from resonō ("I resound").

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/resonance (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).