Beep
nounA short, high-pitched electronic sound used as a signal or alert.
How to spell beep
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce beep
What does beep mean?
- nounA short, high-pitched electronic sound used as a signal or alert.
- verbTo produce or sound a short, high-pitched electronic tone.
Beep in a sentence
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noun
The microwave gave a sharp beep when the timer ended.
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verb
The oven will beep when it reaches the set temperature.
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noun
A loud beep from the smoke alarm woke the whole house.
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verb
Drivers sometimes beep their horns in heavy traffic.
Where does beep come from?
Language of origin: Other
Beep is an onomatopoeic word, meaning it imitates the very sound it names: a short, high electronic tone. It entered English in the late 1920s and gained wide currency in the mid twentieth century as cars, telephones, and later computers all produced sharp signalling tones. The word belongs to the same family of imitative coinages as 'bleep', 'peep', and 'pip', each shaped to mimic a brief noise. Its rise accelerated in the 1950s alongside the space age, when the satellite Sputnik famously broadcast a repeating beep that listeners around the world could hear. Because it was built directly from sound rather than borrowed from another language, the spelling is plain and phonetic, which is why it gives modern writers almost no trouble.
How the word is built
- beep (imitative of a short electronic tone; no affixes)
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