Resonate

How to spell resonate

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce resonate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does resonate mean?

1. verbTo evoke a shared feeling, memory, or sense of meaning in someone.
2. verbTo produce or be filled with a deep, full, ringing sound through vibration.

Resonate in a sentence

• The manager's honest speech seemed to resonate with the whole team.

• The bass notes from the organ made the old stone walls resonate.

• That advertising slogan did not resonate with younger customers at all.

• An empty hall will resonate much more than a crowded one.

Where does resonate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb resonare, which meant 'to sound again' or 'to resound', formed from the prefix re- ('back' or 'again') and sonare ('to sound'). The same sonare root sits inside a whole family of English words, including 'sound' itself (through Old French), 'sonorous', 'sonar', and 'dissonant', all of which point back to the idea of noise carrying through the air. English took 'resonate' into use in the early 1800s, originally in the physical sense of an object vibrating in sympathy with a sound. From there it grew a strong figurative life, describing ideas or feelings that strike a sympathetic chord in people. The single s, pronounced like a z, is the quiet spelling trap: the sound tempts writers toward a z, but the Latin sonare keeps it an s.

How the word is built

• re- (back, again)
• son (sound, from Latin sonare)
• -ate (verb suffix)