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Webster 1913 Edition


Resonance

Res′o-nance

(r?z′?-nans)
,
Noun.
[Cf. F.
résonance
, L.
resonantia
an echo.]
1.
The act of resounding; the quality or state of being resonant.
2.
(Acoustics)
A prolongation or increase of any sound, either by reflection, as in a cavern or apartment the walls of which are not distant enough to return a distinct echo, or by the production of vibrations in other bodies, as a sounding-board, or the bodies of musical instruments.
Pulmonary resonance
(Med.)
,
the sound heard on percussing over the lungs.
Vocal resonance
(Med.)
,
the sound transmitted to the ear when auscultation is made while the patient is speaking.

Webster 1828 Edition


Resonance

RES'ONANCE

,
Noun.
s as z. [L. resonans.]
1.
A resounding; a sound returned from the sides of a hollow instrument of music; reverberated sound or sounds.
2.
A sound returned.

Definition 2024


résonance

résonance

See also: resonance

French

Noun

résonance f (plural résonances)

  1. resonance
    • 1781, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Essai sur l’origine des langues
      Rapportant toute l’harmonie à ce principe très simple de la résonance des cordes dans leurs aliquotes, M. Rameau fonde le mode mineur et la dissonance sur sa prétendue expérience qu’une corde sonore en mouvement fait vibrer d’autres cordes plus longues à sa douzième et à sa dix-septième majeure au grave. Ces cordes, selon lui, vibrent et frémissent dans toute leur longueur, mais elles ne résonnent pas. Voilà, ce me semble,une singulière physique ; c'est comme si l'on disait que le soleil luit et qu'on ne voit rien.
      By reducing the whole of harmony to the very simple principle of the resonance of strings in their aliquots, M. Rameau bases the minor mode and the dissonance on his supposed findings that a vibrating sonorous string induces vibrations in longer strings at the lower twelfth and the lower major seventeenth. According to him these strings vibrate and quiver over their entire length, but do not resonate. That strikes me as rather odd physics; it is as if one were to say that the sun is shining but it is impossible to see anything.