acoustic, a. and n.
(əˈkuːstɪk, əˈkaʊstɪk)
[a. Fr. acoustique, ad. Gr. ἀκουστικ-ός pertaining to hearing, f. ἀκού-ειν to hear. The reg. Eng. representative of the Gr. would be acustic.]
A. adj.
1. a. Pertaining to the sense of hearing, used in hearing, auditory; adapted to aid hearing; pertaining to the science of audible sounds. acoustic coupler (see coupler 2 e); acoustic impedance, see impedance; acoustic mine, a submarine mine designed to be exploded by sound-waves transmitted under water; acoustic phonetics, the study of sound-waves of speech; so acoustic-phonetic adj.
| 1605 Bacon Adv. Learn. 135 This hath place..in Acoustique Art; for the Instrument of hearing is like to the straits and winding within a Cave. 1743 tr. Heister's Surg. 435 An acoustic Instrument so small as to be concealed under one's Wig. 1822 J. Imison Sc. & Art I. 230 A very useful contrivance, called acoustic or speaking tubes, which are now fixed up in houses for the purpose of speaking from one story to another. 1855 Owen Skel. & Teeth 34 The acoustic capsule remains in great part cartilaginous. 1864 Reader 18 June 783/2 The two primary sounds, the co-existence of which gives rise to the acoustic figures, are not in absolute unison. 1865 Pall Mall G. 30 June 11 The drawing-room..formed a very aristocratic but not very acoustic theatre for the display of their talents. 1867 Under one Roof 14 Mrs Clevedon's ears, though exquisitely shaped, were very sharp in the acoustic sense. 1871 Tyndall Frag. Science I. x. 331 (ed. 6) There we had the acoustic opacity of the air. 1873 Sir J. Herschel Pop. Lect. vii. §102. 318 An evident acoustic shadow. 1878 Foster Physiol. iii. i. 392 The olfactory, optic and acoustic nerves are purely sensory nerves. 1879 Prescott Sp. Telephone 47 Already has the acoustic telegraph been invented. Ibid. 49 A perfect system of acoustic telegraphy. |
| 1941 Hansard Commons 9 Sept. 5th Ser. CCCLXXIV. 67 [Mr. Churchill] The attack..is now waged continually by the acoustic mine as well as the magnetic. 1941 C. P. R. Graves Life Line 23 Acoustic mines have been dealt with by our mine-sweepers for months... The sound vibrations of a ship's engines act..in the same way as a finger placed on an ordinary electric bell-push, connecting two electrically alive points and causing current to flow and explode the mine. |
| 1933 L. Bloomfield Language v. 75 The phonetician can study either the sound-producing movements of the speaker (physiological phonetics) or the resulting sound-waves (physical or acoustic phonetics). 1948 M. Joos Acoustic Phonetics 5 Acoustic phonetics is now in its infancy... Acoustic phonetics discussion, even when it is carried on by a linguist, must deal with sound as sound. 1960 Amer. Speech XXXV. 230 an acoustic-phonetic study of internal open juncture. 1964 New Statesman 1 May 705/1 (Advt.), University of Leeds. Applications are invented for the following posts...Lecturer in Acoustic Phonetics. |
b. Of a gramophone or a musical instrument, esp. a guitar: designed so that the sound is recorded or reproduced by mechanical rather than by electrical or electronic means. Opp. electric a. 2 b.
| 1932 G. Wilson Gramophones viii. 43 Ultimately the radio-gramophone..will hold the field to the virtual exclusion of either acoustic gramophone or straight radio-receiver. 1943 Gramophone June 19/2 (heading) Acoustic and electrical reproduction. 1945 Rowe & Watson Junkshoppers' Discography 2 Except for the M.C.B.B. and ‘Hottentot’ items, Aco are all pre-electric (acoustic) recordings. 1951 Sackville-West & Shawe-Taylor Record Guide 718 LPs cannot be played at all on an acoustic gramophone. 1966 Exchange & Mart 3 Feb. 74/3 (Advt.), The best ever bargain in acoustic guitars. 1978 Gramophone Jan. 1321/3 Two of my favourite musicians are involved: the tenor saxophonist Teddy Edwards..and Cedar Walton (he is heard on both electric and acoustic pianos). 1979 Arizona Daily Star 22 July i. 7/1 He plays acoustic guitar and harmonica. |
2. Applied to any device or material designed to lessen sound or noise; sound-absorbent.
| 1924 Sci. Amer. Sept. 165/1 Professor Sabine invented an acoustic tile that is many times as absorbent as the usual masonry surfaces. 1931 Stewart & Lindsay Acoustics vii. 175 The construction of an acoustic filter. 1937 Discovery Dec. 388/1 The new..trains have both roof and sides covered with acoustic blankets made of asbestos. 1960 House & Garden Aug. 46/3 Acoustic board..1s. 3d. sq. ft. 1961 Listener 31 Aug. 310/2 We all know what a difference absorbent acoustic tiles on a ceiling..make to the restful character and quality of a public space. |
B. n.
1. A medicine or appliance which assists hearing.
| 1704 J. Harris Lex. Techn., Acousticks, Medicines or instruments which help the hearing. 1727 Swift Gulliver iii. vi. 216 Administer to each of them..accoustics. 1790 Bailey (ed. Harwood) [as in Harris]. |
2. in pl.: see acoustics.
3. The acoustic quality or properties of a place or a sound, esp. as regards reverberation time. Cf. acoustics 3.
| 1961 [see dry a. A. 18 b]. 1965 Listener 10 June 876/2 When in a [radio] thriller two voices stop and after a gap start again in the same acoustic, it takes conscious adjustment to realize..that we are on the following morning. 1976 Gramophone Jan. 1266/3 Some readers may recall the way in which the acoustic of the old Queen's Hall came through clearly. 1981 I. McEwan Comfort of Strangers iv. 44 Far behind them they heard the children, their voices distorted by an acoustic which suggested a room of vast proportions, chanting a religious formula or an arithmetical table. |
______________________________
Add: [A.] [1.] [a.] acoustic hood, a sound-absorbent cover, usu. used to reduce the noise from a machine or appliance; acoustic microscope, a microscope that relies on the reflection of sound waves to produce an image of the magnified object.
| 1962 Acustica XII. 139/2 Enclosures of this kind, known as *acoustic hoods.., do nevertheless involve problems of their own. 1985 Practical Computing Aug. 92/2 You do not need to buy an acoustic hood as the laser printer is inherently quieter. [1970 Metherell & Larmore Acoustical Hologr. II. x. 117 Other topics explored include (1) theoretical performance characteristics of a 1-GHz scanning acoustical microscope.] 1971 Nature 9 July 110/2 We report on initial experiments with an *acoustic microscope operating at 100 MHz with a resolution of the order of 25µm. 1984 Holtzman & Novikoff Cells & Organelles (ed. 3) i. ii. 25 Acoustic microscopes detect differences in ‘elasticity’—various materials reflect sound waves to varying degrees and show changes in such reflections under different conditions. 1992 S. S. Hall Mapping Next Millennium (1993) xii. 245 Calvin Quate at Stanford, as venerable a figure in the field as Binnig and Rohrer, has developed the scanning acoustic microscope, which applies something like sonar on a nanometer scale to map surfaces. |