ACOUSTICS

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does acoustics mean? 

• ACOUSTICS (noun)
  The noun ACOUSTICS has 1 sense:

1. the study of the physical properties of sound

  Familiarity information: ACOUSTICS used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ACOUSTICS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The study of the physical properties of sound

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("acoustics" is a kind of...):

physical science; physics (the physical properties, phenomena, and laws of something)

Domain member category:

acoustic radiation pressure ((acoustics) the pressure exerted on a surface normal to the direction of propagation of a sound wave)

acoustic wave; sound wave ((acoustics) a wave that transmits sound)

reflect; reverberate (to throw or bend back (from a surface))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "acoustics"):

harmonics (the study of musical sound)

phonetics (the branch of acoustics concerned with speech processes including its production and perception and acoustic analysis)

Derivation:

acoustic; acoustical (of or relating to the science of acoustics)

acoustician (a physicist who specializes in acoustics)

 Context examples 

This doctor therefore proposed, that upon the meeting of the senate, certain physicians should attend it the three first days of their sitting, and at the close of each day’s debate feel the pulses of every senator; after which, having maturely considered and consulted upon the nature of the several maladies, and the methods of cure, they should on the fourth day return to the senate house, attended by their apothecaries stored with proper medicines; and before the members sat, administer to each of them lenitives, aperitives, abstersives, corrosives, restringents, palliatives, laxatives, cephalalgics, icterics, apophlegmatics, acoustics, as their several cases required; and, according as these medicines should operate, repeat, alter, or omit them, at the next meeting.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

After tea, we discussed a variety of topics before the fire; and Mrs. Micawber was good enough to sing us (in a small, thin, flat voice, which I remembered to have considered, when I first knew her, the very table-beer of acoustics) the favourite ballads of The Dashing White Sergeant, and Little Tafflin.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)