sounding

Pluralsoundings (some meanings)

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of sound.

   The church bells were sounding across the valley as evening fell.

   Sounding the ocean floor, the crew lowered a weighted line over the side.

   Note

   The participle carries every meaning of the verb, including the one that works like seem: sounding very sleepy, sounding affected. In that use it takes an adjective, not an adverb, so a person is sounding tired, never sounding tiredly. As a gerund it sits close to the noun for making a sound. In "the sounding of bugles" the word is a noun, while in "sounding bugles at dawn" it is still a verb taking an object.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The act or process of producing a sound.

   The sounding of the great organ filled the cathedral.

   At dawn the sounding of bugles signaled the camp to rise.

   Similarringing, blaring

   Note

   Two verbs share this spelling. One is sound, to make a noise, as in John Lightfoot's The Temple-Service (c. 1650), where the trumpets give "three soundings at the three pausings of the music." The other is sound, to examine with a probe, which gives the probe sense. The plural soundings can also mean discreet inquiries: Sir Herbert Walker "in the course of his soundings" heard reports of Bulleid. That use is closer to probing than to noise.

3. 3
   adjective

   Giving off or emitting a sound.

   The sounding brass of the orchestra rang through the hall.

   A sounding alarm filled the corridor as the drill began.

   Similarringing, resonant

   Oppositesilent

4. 4
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A measurement of the depth of water at a particular point.

   The pilot ordered a fresh sounding as the channel narrowed.

   Charts are built from thousands of soundings taken across the bay.

   Similarreading, measurement

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A test or examination carried out with a probe or sonde.

   The physician ordered a sounding to assess the narrowing of the passage.

   Meteorologists release balloons to take a sounding of temperature and humidity aloft.

   Similarreading

   Note

   Weather forecasters use the word daily. A sounding is the profile a sonde records as it rises through the air. It is named by station and time, as in "morning sounding at Chatham," and read for lapse rates up to a given pressure level. Oceanographers use the plural for surveys of the sea floor, where soundings reveal variations in depth, much like a measured depth of water.

6. 6
   adjective

   Rich and full in sound; resonant or sonorous.

   The choir filled the nave with sounding harmonies.

   His sounding baritone carried easily to the back rows.

   Similarresonant, sonorous, rich, booming, full

   Oppositethin, reedy, faint

   Note

   A literary adjective for things that resound richly. Dryden writes of "sounding words" in Annus Mirabilis (1667), and in Annabel Lee (1849) Poe places her tomb "by the sounding sea." The plain "making a noise" adjective describes something giving off a sound at that moment. This one describes a lasting quality, such as the sea's deep, continuous voice. It is not compared, so nothing is "more sounding."

7. 7
   nouncountable or uncountableplural

   A place in the ocean or other body of water shallow enough for a weighted line to reach the bottom.

   By midnight the vessel had reached soundings, and the crew slowed her speed.

   The frigate stood off soundings, in water far too deep for the lead to find bottom.

   Note

   This is sailors' geography rather than a single measurement. It is almost always plural and used without an article: a ship strikes soundings, reaches soundings, or stands off soundings in deep water. In the naval song Spanish Ladies (before 1840), the crew will "rant and roar across the salt seas" until they "strike soundings in the Channel of old England." Landfall begins when the lead first finds bottom.

8. 8
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The act of inserting a thin metal rod into the urethra of the penis for medical or sexual purposes.

   A medical sounding can dilate a stricture in the urethra.

   Practitioners warn that improper sounding carries a real risk of infection.

9. 9
   nouncountable or uncountable

   The sand, shells, and other material brought up by a weighted lead once it has touched the bottom.

   The mate examined the sounding clinging to the tallow on the lead.

   Soundings of soft mud told the navigator they had entered the estuary.

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