Acoustic

How to spell acoustic

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce acoustic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does acoustic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to sound, hearing, or the way sound travels in a space.
2. adjectiveDescribing a musical instrument or performance that is not electrically amplified.

Acoustic in a sentence

• The engineers measured the acoustic properties of the new concert hall.

• She played a stripped-back acoustic version of her single for the radio session.

• Thick curtains improve the acoustic comfort of a busy open-plan office.

• He prefers the warm tone of an acoustic guitar to an electric one.

Where does acoustic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek akoustikos, meaning 'pertaining to hearing', which was built on the verb akouein, 'to hear'. It travelled into English in the early 1600s, partly through French acoustique, and at first it was used in fairly technical writing about the science of sound. Over time it broadened from the abstract idea of hearing to describe anything relating to sound and how it behaves in a space, and later still it came to mark instruments that are not electrically amplified. The same akouein root sits behind the rarer medical term 'acoumeter', a device once used to test hearing. The spelling trap lives at the front: a single c followed by 'ou', written 'acou', even though many people are tempted to double the c or drop the o.

How the word is built

• acous- (from Greek akouein: to hear)
• -tic (adjective suffix)