Sound, n.
 1. The peceived object occasioned by the impulse or vibration of a material substance affecting the ear; a sensation or perception of the mind received through the ear, and produced by the impulse or vibration of the air or other medium with which the ear is in contact; the effect of an impression made on the organs of hearing by an impulse or vibration of the air caused by a collision of bodies, or by other means; noise; report; as, the sound of a drum; the sound of the human voice; a horrid sound; a charming sound; a sharp, high, or shrill sound.
 The warlike sound
 Of trumpets loud and clarions.   --Milton.
 2. The occasion of sound; the impulse or vibration which would occasion sound to a percipient if present with unimpaired; hence, the theory of vibrations in elastic media such cause sound; as, a treatise on sound.
 Note: ☞ In this sense, sounds are spoken of as audible and inaudible.
 3. Noise without signification; empty noise; noise and nothing else.
    Sense and not sound . . . must be the principle.   --Locke.
 Sound boarding, boards for holding pugging, placed in partitions of under floors in order to deaden sounds.
 Sound bow, in a series of transverse sections of a bell, that segment against which the clapper strikes, being the part which is most efficacious in producing the sound. See Illust. of Bell.
 Sound post. Mus. See Sounding post, under Sounding.
 Sound·ing, n.
 1. The act of one who, or that which, sounds (in any of the senses of the several verbs).
 2. Naut.  (a) measurement by sounding; also, the depth so ascertained. (b) Any place or part of the ocean, or other water, where a sounding line will reach the bottom; -- usually in the plural. (c) The sand, shells, or the like, that are brought up by the sounding lead when it has touched bottom.
 Sounding lead, the plummet at the end of a sounding line.
 Sounding line, a line having a plummet at the end, used in making soundings.
 Sounding post Mus., a small post in a violin, violoncello, or similar instrument, set under the bridge as a support, for propagating the sounds to the body of the instrument; -- called also sound post.
 Sounding rod Naut., a rod used to ascertain the depth of water in a ship's hold.
 In soundings, within the eighty-fathom line.
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