REVERBERATION

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does reverberation mean? 

• REVERBERATION (noun)
  The noun REVERBERATION has 2 senses:

1. the repetition of a sound resulting from reflection of the sound waves

2. a remote or indirect consequence of some action

  Familiarity information: REVERBERATION used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• REVERBERATION (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The repetition of a sound resulting from reflection of the sound waves

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

echo; replication; reverberation; sound reflection

Context example:

she could hear echoes of her own footsteps

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

reflection; reflectivity; reflexion (the ability to reflect beams or rays)

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

re-echo (the echo of an echo)

Derivation:

reverberate (ring or echo with sound)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A remote or indirect consequence of some action

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Synonyms:

repercussion; reverberation

Context example:

reverberations of the market crash were felt years later

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

consequence; effect; event; issue; outcome; result; upshot (a phenomenon that follows and is caused by some previous phenomenon)

Derivation:

reverberate (have a long or continuing effect)

 Context examples 

No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red- room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There was such a sudden boom and reverberation that we both stood silent for a moment.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

On the other side of the house an immense fire had burned itself into clear embers and shed a steady, red reverberation, contrasted strongly with the mellow paleness of the moon.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Yet the bells, when they sounded, told me sorrowfully of change in everything; told me of their own age, and my pretty Dora's youth; and of the many, never old, who had lived and loved and died, while the reverberations of the bells had hummed through the rusty armour of the Black Prince hanging up within, and, motes upon the deep of Time, had lost themselves in air, as circles do in water.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Among the fallen rocks the breakers spouted and bellowed; loud reverberations, heavy sprays flying and falling, succeeded one another from second to second; and I saw myself, if I ventured nearer, dashed to death upon the rough shore or spending my strength in vain to scale the beetling crags.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)