Phrase guide

high fidelity

adj · noun · 4 senses · updated from the 2026-07-25 local source snapshot

Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.

Sound

Pronunciation

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

No pronunciation record was provided for this word.

1

adj

Meaning 1

Characterized by minimal distortion.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: not-comparable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

2

noun

Meaning 2

The electronic reproduction of a given sound or image with relatively high accuracy.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: low fidelity, lo-fi, LoFi, no fidelity, no-fi, NoFi

3

noun

Meaning 3

A high-quality reproduction of sound.

Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract

Usage: uncountable

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: none provided

Antonyms: none provided

4

noun

Meaning 4

the reproduction of sound with little or no distortion

Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0

No example sentence was provided for this meaning.

Meaning relationships

Synonyms: hi-fi

Antonyms: none provided

Broader terms: sound reproduction

Narrower terms: headroom, dynamic headroom

History

Etymology

From the idea of strong lifelikeness, being very much true to life, a faithful reproduction of the original sounds that were recorded, with very little loss of information.

Across languages

Translations

12 source translations are retained for this English entry.

  • Chinese Mandarin: 高保真 (gāobǎozhēn) — electronic system
  • Esperanto: altfidelo — electronic system
  • Estonian: kõrge helikvaliteediga — electronic system
  • Finnish: hifi — electronic system
  • French: haute-fidélité — electronic system
  • Greek: υψηλή πιστότητα (ypsilí pistótita) — electronic system
  • Irish: ard-dílseacht — electronic system
  • Japanese: ハイファイ (haifai) — electronic system
  • Romanian: înaltă fidelitate — electronic system
  • Russian: хай-фа́й (xaj-fáj) — electronic system
  • Spanish: alta fidelidad — electronic system
  • Xibe: ᡥᠠᡞ ᡫᡝᡞ (hai fei) — electronic system