resonance

Language: en

🇺🇸 /ˈrɛzənəns/

📖 Definitions

  1. noun
    The quality of being deep, full, and reverberating in sound; a rich, full, and prolonged sound.; The phenomenon in physics where a system vibrates with greater amplitude at certain frequencies, known as its resonant frequencies, when subjected to a periodic force.; A quality of evoking emotional response, significance, or meaning; the power to suggest or imply additional meaning beyond the literal.; In chemistry, the concept that certain molecules or ions cannot be adequately represented by a single Lewis structure but are instead a hybrid of multiple contributing structures.; In medicine, a hollow sound heard during percussion of the chest, indicating the presence of air in the lungs.; In astronomy, a gravitational relationship between orbiting bodies where their orbital periods are in a ratio of small whole numbers, causing periodic gravitational influence.; In particle physics, a short-lived subatomic particle or excited state that is detected as a peak in the cross-section of a scattering experiment.; In electrical engineering, the condition in an RLC circuit where the inductive and capacitive reactances are equal, resulting in maximum current or voltage at a particular frequency.; The reinforcement or prolongation of sound by reflection or by the synchronous vibration of a sympathetic object.

🔗 Details

Word forms

countable / uncountable Plural: resonances

Collocations

magnetic resonancein resonance withemotional resonancecultural resonancestrike a resonancenuclear magnetic resonance

Derivatives

resonantresonateresonantlyresonator

Synonyms

reverberationechovibrationsonoritydepthrichness

Antonyms

dissonance

Commonly confused

reverberation
EN: 'Reverberation' refers specifically to the physical echoing of sound, while 'resonance' can refer to both physical vibration and figurative emotional or cultural depth.
resonancy
EN: 'Resonancy' is an archaic/rare variant of 'resonance' and is almost never used in modern English.

Spelling tips

EN: Remember 'resonance' ends in '-ance' (not '-ence'), and has a single 'n' before the 'a' in the middle: r-e-s-o-n-a-n-c-e.

💬 Examples

  1. The resonance of the church organ filled the entire cathedral.

  2. The bridge collapsed due to resonance caused by the wind matching its natural frequency.

  3. The poem's resonance lies in its ability to speak to universal human experiences.

  4. The benzene ring is best described by resonance between two Kekulé structures.

  5. The physician noted normal resonance upon percussing the patient's lung fields.

  6. Pluto and Neptune are in a 3:2 orbital resonance, meaning Pluto completes two orbits for every three of Neptune.

  7. The delta baryon is a well-known resonance observed in pion-nucleon scattering.

  8. The radio tuner achieves resonance at the desired station's frequency to select the signal.

  9. The wooden body of the guitar provides resonance that amplifies the vibrations of the strings.