resonance means the quality of being resonant.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, resonance ranks #7,084 of 14,414 for Most Elegant Words.
resonance is pronounced /ˈɹɛzənəns/.
Why “resonance” is a great word
The quality of a sound being deep, full, and reverberating, or the reinforcement of a wave or idea by reflection or synchronous vibration. From Old French resonance, from Latin resonantia ("echo"), from resonō ("to resound, to echo"), first attested in English in the mid-15th century. Unlike an "echo" (a distinct, discrete repetition) or a "nuance" (a subtle distinction), resonance is the encompassing, sympathetic vibration that fills the space between the initial note and its return. It is the sustained hum of a cello's lowest string in an empty hall, the shiver of a bridge when the marching band's step falls just right, and the profound truth one finds in a line of poetry written centuries ago—a sense that something fundamental has been answered, long after the original source has fallen still.
Etymology
From Old French resonance (French résonance), from Latin resonantia (“echo”), from resonō (“to resound”).
noun
- The quality of being resonant.“The leiter-wagons contained great, square boxes, with handles of thick rope; these were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved.”
- A resonant sound, echo, or reverberation, such as that produced by blowing over the top of a bottle.“He passed on, and the lights and cries of the station dropped away, merged in a wider haze and a hollower resonance, as the train gathered itself up with a long shake and rolled out again into the darkness.”
- The sound produced by a hollow body part such as the chest cavity upon auscultation, especially that produced while the patient is speaking.
- Something that evokes an association, or a strong emotion; something that strikes a chord.“emotional resonance”
- The increase in the amplitude of an oscillation of a system under the influence of a periodic force whose frequency is close to that of the system's natural frequency.“One of the most important developments beyond the original concept of magnetic resonance is so-called double resonance in which, as the name suggests, one excites one resonant transition of a system while simultaneously monitoring a different transition.”
- A short-lived subatomic particle or state of atomic excitation that results from the collision of atomic particles.“When experiments with the first ‘atom-smashers’ took place in the 1950s to 1960s, many short-lived heavier siblings of the proton and neutron, known as ‘resonances’, were discovered.”
- An increase in the strength or duration of a musical tone produced by sympathetic vibration.
- The property of a compound that can be visualized as having two structures differing only in the distribution of electrons.
- An influence of the gravitational forces of one orbiting object on the orbit of another, causing periodic perturbations.“The dedicated time Cheops spent observing the star helped astronomers iron out the mixed signals from the TESS data to determine how many planets were crossing in front of the star and the resonance of their orbits.”
- The condition where the inductive and capacitive reactances have equal magnitude.
- A quality of human relationship with the world.“Resonance is a kind of relationship to the world, formed through affect and emotion, intrinsic interest, and perceived self-efficacy, in which subject and world are mutually affected and transformed.”
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