sonicadj.
/ˈsɒnɪk/, U.S. /ˈsɑnɪk/ 1. Of, relating to, or involving sound or sound waves, esp. within the audible range. Also: designating such waves.In quot. 1918: of or relating to material vibrations more generally. Cf. sonics n. 1.
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > thing heard > [adjective] > relating to sound waves
sonic1918
1918 G. Constantinesco Theory of Sonics i. i. 2 The Sonic methods are relying entirely on the elastic properties of liquids, and use is made of this elasticity for the transmission of energy.
1919 Surveyor & Munic. & County Engineer 7 Nov. 272/2 Specially constructed hammer tools actuated by that wonderful discovery ‘Sonic waves’.
1926 Encycl. Brit. Suppl. II. 1025/2 The apparatus consists of two microphones, one of which registers the emission of a sonic signal and the other the arrival of the echo reflected by the bottom of the sea.
1936 Jrnl. Amer. Chem. Soc. 58 1071/2 In order to avoid any possible sonic action directly on a test reagent.
1962 F. I. Ordway et al. Basic Astronautics viii. 345 Since the flow often speeds up when passing over a body it is possible for sonic flow to exist over parts of a body which is moving at speeds somewhat less than Mach 1.
1969 L. F. Yerges Sound, Noise, & Vibration Control i. 1 There is no essential difference between the sonic and vibratory forms of sound energy.
1975 Sci. Amer. Oct. 135/1 The ultrasonic world is quieter than the sonic, mainly because its sounds are more local.
1977 Gramophone Dec. 1016/1 Sonic beauty abounds in The Triumphs of Oriana..: 64 minutes of music packed with admirable clarity..on a single disc.
2010 Vanity Fair Dec. 172/1 The beauty of radio is that the ambience of other countries, other cultures, fills the sonic background.
2. Designating a device or process which employs or is operated by sound waves, esp. one which employs reflected echoes of sound pulses (cf. sonar n.).
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > thing heard > [adjective] > relating to sound waves > employing sound waves
sonic1919
1919 Surveyor & Munic. & County Engineer 7 Nov. 272/1 On several occasions recently parties of civil and mining engineers have seen one of the Sonic abrading tools attacking the face of a huge block of the hardest granite.
1924 Telegr. & Telephone Jrnl. 10 172/2 The United States destroyers Hull and Corry, equipped with sonic depth sounders..have been ordered to survey the ocean bed.
1952 Chambers's Jrnl. June 364/2 After the War a sonic gun was actually found in a German laboratory.
1965 Punch 17 Mar. 390/1 ‘That thing [sc. a torpedo] live?’ I asked. ‘Very,’ said the Lieutenant-Commander, ‘but it's only an antiquated sonic-homing job.’
1976 B. Bova Multiple Man (1977) i. 11 If anyone tried to fire a shot..the scanning lasers would pick up the bullet... Sonic janglers would paralyse everyone in the auditorium.
2012 T. L. Hardy Software & Syst. Safety iv. 133 The fathometer, a sonic device used to measure ocean depth, had not been set correctly.
Compounds
sonic bang n. = sonic boom n.
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > degree, kind, or quality of sound > sudden or violent sound > [noun] > sonic bang or boom
sonic bang1952
sonic boom1952
bang1955
1952 Manch. Guardian 1 Sept. 6/5 There has been much restiveness among the local population..on account of the noise caused by the flying for the S.B.A.C. display, especially the sonic bangs.
a1974 R. Crossman Diaries (1976) II. 169 Next came the Minister of Aviation, Mr Mulley, who had put in a request for urgent legislation on sonic bangs.
2013 Times (Nexis) 16 Feb. There was a flash, a vapour trail and a sonic bang that made houses wobble and crack, spraying broken window glass across the streets.
sonic barrier n. (in early use) the collective technological obstacles to attaining supersonic speed; (now) the speed of sound conceived as a physical barrier; = sound barrier n. at sound n.3 Compounds 2a.
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > thing heard > [noun] > sound > sound barrier
sound barrier1939
sonic barrier1945
1945 Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gaz. 1 July 4/5 The sonic barrier still stands in the way.
1946 Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 50 445/2 I do not imagine for one moment that man will be happy until he has conquered the ‘sonic barrier’.
1955 Sci. News Let. 24 Sept. 195 (caption) By giving the aircraft a ‘wasp waist’, engineers..made it slip more smoothly through the sonic barrier.
2015 Toronto Star (Nexis) 26 Apr. a1 The sonic barrier is broken at 1,224 kilometres an hour.
sonic boom n. the sudden loud noise heard when the shock wave from an aircraft or other object travelling faster than sound reaches the ears.
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > degree, kind, or quality of sound > sudden or violent sound > [noun] > sonic bang or boom
sonic bang1952
sonic boom1952
bang1955
1952 Anniston (Alabama) Star 23 May 4/4 The Montgomery explosion turned out to be a sonic boom common to cities near air bases where jet planes are based.
1966 Guardian 2 May 8/6 Mr Amery, Minister of Aviation, told Parliament that damage from the Concord's sonic booms would be ‘negligible’.
1977 New Yorker 24 Oct. 36/2 I heard the explosion even inside the manuscript room... It sounded like a sonic boom.
2005 Guardian 1 Nov. i. 23/1 Over the weekend, Israeli air force jets caused two dozen sonic booms.
sonic branding n. Advertising and Marketing the repeated use of a particular sound, piece of music, etc., in a company’s advertisements as a method of developing brand identity.
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1998 Independent 1 May (Eye section) 14/6 ‘The Wizard’ served as the technical model for subsequent efforts at TOTP sonic branding.
2007 S. R. Kumar Marketing & Branding: Indian Scenario (2009) v. 350 There are two aspects in sonic branding—creating and sustaining the sound effects unique to the brand.
2014 Music, Sound, & Moving Image 8 130 The Hangover trilogy demonstrates the use of sonic branding and consistency of a common ‘sound’ across a franchise.
sonic landscape n. (a) a musical composition characterized by the building up of layers of sound to form a densely textured work, esp. in electronic music; cf. soundscape n. (a) at sound n.3 Compounds 2a; (b) the full range of sounds which are characteristic of or peculiar to a particular area or environment; cf. soundscape n. (b) at sound n.3 Compounds 2a.
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1963 Newsday (N.Y.) 19 Mar. 1 c/3 Sonic landscape for twelve radios.
1975 Daily Republic (Mitchell, S. Dakota) 19 July 4/2 The urban sonic landscape is getting to be as littered in its own way as the visual landscape.
1987 Keyboard Mar. 51/1 Under the name Synergy, Fast has released eight albums of meticulous sonic landscapes.
2010 C. Salter Entangled vi. 238 A specially created array of electronic switching equipment and a fifty-two-channel mixer..enabled the musicians to control a batter of reel-to-reel tape recorders, radios, oscillators, and other electronics and trigger the overall sonic landscape.
2014 National (Abu Dhabi) (Nexis) 12 Oct. He listens in on Istanbul's sonic landscape... Loud music from clubs, ambulance sirens wailing, military automobiles speeding to and fro.
sonic logo n. Advertising and Marketing a sound or brief melody trademarked by a company as part of its branding, esp. for use in advertisements; cf. sonic branding n.
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1994 Re: THX CD Sampler in rec.audio.tech 18 Nov. I've got a .wav file of the THX sonic-logo (what's the term for this?) that I grabbed from sounds.sdsu when it was still up.
1998 Marketing (Electronic ed.) 15 Oct. 33 The first Radiowatch..saw One 2 One achieving the highest recall levels—how much of that is down to that ubiquitous sonic-logo used in their current heavyweight TV campaign?
2003 D. M. Jackson Sonic Branding xxiii. 146 That a sonic logo has built recognition and become linked to a brand must be proved through research.
2014 Independent (Nexis) 8 Mar. (Mag.) 18 You could have a very jaunty sonic logo, but if your telephone staff are pissing people off.., then your sonic logo is just going to remind people of that.
sonic palette n. the characteristic range of tonal or instrumental colour in a particular musical piece or genre, or a particular composer's work (cf. palette n. 1c); (also, and in earliest use) the range of sounds which can be produced by a particular musical instrument.
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1973 Notes June 813/2 Each movement deals with a different aspect of the sonic palette of the solo instrument.
1999 S. Waksman Instruments of Desire (2001) 240 Page..is concerned with using the electric guitar to expand the sonic palette of rock.
2006 Business Day (S. Afr.) (Nexis) 18 Mar. (Arts, Culture & Entertainm. section) 13 Blanchard as the soundtrack composer is involved from a project's birth... ‘I start visualising orchestrations and sonic palettes’.
2014 New Yorker 6 Oct. 17/2 For his new album.., he expanded his sonic palette to include glam-inflected pop and inspirations from musical theatre.
sonic screwdriver n. chiefly Science Fiction a (hand-held) electronic device which uses sound waves to perform various mechanical and technical functions.Originally and chiefly in (or with reference to) the British television series Doctor Who.
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1968 in V. Pemberton Doctor Who: Fury from Deep (transcript of TV programme) 16 Mar. ‘Will it not budge?’ ‘No... Oh well—have to use this... It's a sonic screwdriver. Never fails. There we are—neat, isn't it? All done by sound waves.’
1992 Sydney Morning Herald (Nexis) 27 Nov. 3 What was yesterday..the idle speculation of the kind of guys whose dearest wish..would be to own a real-life Sonic Screwdriver, is today a cold reality, tomorrow ubiquitous.
2005 S. Moffat Doctor Dances in Doctor Who: Shooting Scripts (TV script) x. 364 Jack Who has a sonic screwdriver? The Doctor I do!
2012 Physics Today June 20/1/1 The Dundee team's sonic screwdriver..can generate beams with up to 12 intertwined helices.
sonic speed n. the speed at which sound waves travel in a particular medium, esp. air; the speed of sound; cf. sonic velocity n. [In quot. 1939 after Italian velocità del suono speed of sound (18th cent. or earlier; also in the paper abstracted in this quot.).]
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > thing heard > [noun] > sound > sonic speed
sonic speed1939
sonic velocity1942
1939 Aircraft Engin. Sept. 354/1 The shock wave represents a spasmodic recompression after the expansion which occurs at sonic speed on the upper trailing edge.
1962 F. I. Ordway et al. Basic Astronautics viii. 344 At this point the body is moving at sonic speed and transonic conditions exist.
2012 Irish Examiner (Nexis) 9 Oct. He'll produce about 300kw of heat when falling at sonic speeds.
sonic velocity n. the velocity at which sound waves travel in a particular medium, esp. air; cf. sonic speed n.Chiefly in scientific and technical use.
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > thing heard > [noun] > sound > sonic speed
sonic speed1939
sonic velocity1942
1942 Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 46 64 The local ‘sonic velocity’ a is then defined by the expression:—a2 = dp/dρ.
1962 Rep. Progress Physics 25 329 Increasing the length of interacting region will give a deceleration down to the sonic velocity.
2005 C. R. Branan Rules Thumb Chem. Engineers (ed. 4) i. 3/2 For the situations covered here, compressible fluids might reach sonic velocity.
Derivatives
ˈsonically adv. by means of sound waves; by means of sonar; (also) with regard to sound.
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the world > physical sensation > hearing and noise > thing heard > [adverb] > by sound waves
sonically1932
1932 J. H. Paul Last Cruise of Carnegie 39 With these [pressure thermometers] we have an ingenious method for checking the depths recorded sonically and by wire.
1936 Jrnl. Amer. Chem. Soc. 58 1070/2 A quantitative study of certain oxidation reactions sonically activated in the audible range.
1959 Brookhaven Symp. Biol. 12 11 A sonically fragmented sample.
1981 Popular Hi-Fi Mar. 21/2 The Crimson is a better pre-amplifier sonically.
2009 N.Y. Times (National ed.) 22 June c5/5 Even when the band was sonically flamboyant, it was visually dull.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2017; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.1918