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An instrument for observing or exhibiting the motions or properties of sounding bodies; especially, an apparatus invented by König for testing the quality of musical strings.

A piece of lead attached to a line, used in sounding the depth of water. I'll sink him deeper than e'er plummet sounded. Shak.

ry or constant use; state of being used. Obsolete words may be revived when they are more sounding or more significant than those in practice. Dryden.

s. cxlii. 7. The tyrant Æolus, . . . With power imperial, curbs the struggling winds, And sounding tempests in dark prisons binds. Dryden.

To rave in violent, high-sounding, or extravagant language, without dignity of thought; to be noisy, boisterous, and bombastic in talk or declamation; as, a ranting preacher. Look where my ranting host of the Garter comes! Shak.

Rebellowing; resounding loudly. [R.] Mrs. Browning.

The act of resounding; the quality or state of being resonant.

Returning, or capable of returning, sound; fitted to resound; resounding; echoing back. Through every hour of the golden morning, the streets were resonant with female parties of young and old. De Quincey.

A signal given in the army or navy, by the beat of a drum or the sounding of trumpet or bugle, at sunset (when the roll is called), or for retiring from action.

An oversounding, or a misuse, of the letter r; specifically (Phylol.), the tendency, exhibited in the Indo-European languages, to change s to r, as wese to were.

To utter copiously, esp. with sounding words; to utter with a deep sound; -- often with forth, or out; as, to roll forth some one's praises; to roll out sentences. Who roll'd the psalm to wintry skies. Tennyson.

The little wheel of a spur, with sharp points. With sounding whip, and rowels dyed in blood. Cowper.

Of a beautiful bluish green color, like sea water on soundings.

Of or pertaining to a semivowel; half cocal; imperfectly sounding.

A wind instrument whose sounding parts are reeds, consisting of a thin tongue of brass playing freely through a slot in a plate. It has a case, like a piano, and is played by means of a similar keybord, the bellows being worked by the foot. The melodeon is a portable variety of this instrument.

g disk or disks. A form with two disks operated by steam or highly compressed air is used sounding an alarm to vessels in fog. [Written also sirene, and syren.]

the foot, and used for moving rapidly on ice. Batavia rushes forth; and as they sweep, On sounding skates, a thousand different ways, In circling poise, swift as the winds, along, The then gay land is maddended all to joy. Thomson. Roller skate. See under Roller.

An apparatus in the trumpet and trombone by which the sounding tube is lengthened and shortened so as to produce the tones between the fundamental and its harmonics.

times. Milton. Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full-resounding line. Pope. When sage Minerva rose, From her sweet lips smooth elocution flows. Gay.

Of or pertaining to sound; sounding.