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sounder. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
sounder, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
sounder in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
sounder you have here. The definition of the word
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English
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English *soundere, from Old English ġesundra, from Proto-Germanic *sundizô, equivalent to sound + -er (comparative suffix).
Adjective
sounder
- comparative form of sound: more sound
1961 April, “Talking of Trains”, in Trains Illustrated, page 199:The Northern Division Traffic Manager has said that there is no present intention of terminating the service, but the hopes previously entertained of expanding it cannot be entertained until it is operating on a sounder economic basis.
Etymology 2
From Middle English soundar, sownere, equivalent to sound + -er.
Noun
sounder (plural sounders)
- Something or someone who makes a sound.
a telephone with an electronic sounder
- An instrument used in telegraphy in place of a register, the communications being read by sound.
- (medicine, dated, plural only) A stethoscope.
Derived terms
Translations
Etymology 3
From French sonder.
Noun
sounder (plural sounders)
- (nautical) A device for making soundings at sea.
- (nautical) A person who takes soundings.
- (fishing) A fishfinder.
Etymology 4
Inherited from Middle English soundre, from Anglo-Norman soundre, Old Northern French sondre, from a Germanic language, probably Old English sunor (“herd of swine”), from Proto-West Germanic *suniʀu, plural of *sun (“swine, boar”), from Proto-Germanic *sunaz (“boar”), from Proto-Indo-European *sewH- (“to bring forth, bear, give birth”). Cognate with Dutch zeunie (“trough, drinking bowl”).
Noun
sounder (plural sounders)
- A group of wild boar.
1958, T[erence] H[anbury] White, chapter II, in The Once and Future King, New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam's Sons, →ISBN, book I (The Sword in the Stone):It was not only that there were wild boars in it, whose sounders would at this season be furiously rooting about, nor that one of the surviving wolves might be slinking behind any tree, with pale eyes and slavering chops.
- A young boar.
Anagrams
Middle English
Noun
sounder
- Alternative form of soundre