Standard Lemma guide
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
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.
noun
Artificial echolocation by use of electronic equipment, with hydrophones to locate objects underwater, using the same wave-analysis principles that radar uses.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: uncountable, usually
Topics: nautical, transport
Synonyms: ASDIC
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: imaging
noun
A device that provides such echolocation.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: countable
Topics: nautical, transport
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: device
noun
Any echolocation.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: broadly, countable, uncountable
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Dated form of sonar.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: alt-of, countable, dated, uncountable
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
a measuring instrument that sends out an acoustic pulse in water and measures distances in terms of the time for the echo of the pulse to return
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Synonyms: echo sounder, asdic
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: measuring instrument, measuring system, measuring device, navigational instrument
History
By anacronymic evolution from SONAR.
Acronym of sound navigation and ranging. Coined by American scientist Frederick Vinton Hunt in the 1940s, roughly contemporaneously with radar. The lowercase form (sonar) is by anacronymic evolution.
Across languages
33 source translations are retained for this English entry.
