Sounded

How to spell sounded

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sounded

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sounded mean?

1. verbPast tense of sound: produced a noise, or gave a particular impression when heard.
2. verbPast tense of sound: measured the depth of water, usually with a weighted line.

Sounded in a sentence

• The fire alarm sounded just as the meeting began.

• The crew sounded the harbour carefully before bringing the ship in.

• Her explanation sounded perfectly reasonable at the time.

• The survey team sounded the lake to map its deepest channels.

Where does sounded come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The base word comes from the Latin sonus, meaning 'a noise' or 'a sound', which passed into Old French as 'son' and reached English in the 1200s, picking up an unetymological 'd' on the end so that 'soun' became 'sound', much as happened to 'bound' from 'boun'. From the idea of a noise that the ear catches, the verb broadened to mean 'to give a particular impression', as when something 'sounds reasonable'. A separate but related strand, the nautical verb meaning 'to measure the depth of water', comes from the Old French 'sonder', traced back to Latin 'sub unda', meaning 'under the wave'. The past tense 'sounded' simply adds the regular -ed ending, and because the word ends in a voiced 'd' the suffix is pronounced as a full extra syllable. The same sonus root still echoes through everyday relatives like 'resonate', 'sonic', and 'unison'.

How the word is built

• sound (noise, from Latin sonus)
• -ed (past tense suffix)