sonar

[ soh-nahr ]

noun

1. a method for detecting and locating objects submerged in water by echolocation.
2. the apparatus used in sonar.

sonar

/ ˈsəʊnɑː /

noun

1. a communication and position-finding device used in underwater navigation and target detection using echolocation

sonar

/ sō′när′ /

1. Short for sound navigation and ranging. A method of detecting, locating, and determining the speed of objects through the use of reflected sound waves. A sound signal is produced, and the time it takes for the signal to reach an object and for its echo to return is used to calculate the object's distance. The Doppler effect can also be used to determine the object's relative velocity. Electronic sonar systems are used for submarine navigation and for detecting schools of fish. Some mammals, especially bats, use biological sonar to navigate and detect prey in dark conditions, commonly called echolocation.
2. The equipment or physiology used in doing this.
3. See also Doppler effect

Word History and Origins

Origin of sonar¹

1940–45; so(und) na(vigation) r(anging)

Word History and Origins

Origin of sonar¹

C20: from so ( und ) na ( vigation and ) r ( anging )

Example Sentences

As the philosopher Thomas Nagel noted, it must “be like” something to be a bat, but what that is we cannot even imagine—because we cannot imagine what it would be like to observe the world through a kind of sonar.

From MIT Technology Review

It’s similar to how a bat uses sonar to “see” its surroundings.

From Science News For Students

That was the only way to explain the thermocline, a zone of rapidly decreasing temperature that separates warm surface waters from the frigid deep ocean, which affected naval sonar.

From Science News

The scientific goals of the expeditions are always secondary, although splurging for the sonar mapping system turns out to be key in verifying their world-record-holding status.

From Washington Post

Uncrewed ships equipped with sonar spot suspicious objects from different angles, and an extended telescopic arm wields a nail gun to attach an explosive charge.

From Popular-Science

It had advanced sonar—aimed not at the ocean floor but at other subs and shipping—and drew a blank.

From The Daily Beast

They are loaded with state-of-the art sonar and radar equipment.

From The Daily Beast

Or how about powerful sonar blasts the U.S. Navy is using in the waters off southern California?

From The Daily Beast

Before that, in December 2011, it won a $691 million U.S. Navy subcontract for “combat and sonar systems” for submarines.

From The Daily Beast

He was talking about the sonar beacon linked to the black box of Air France Flight 447.

From The Daily Beast

The tyme of hir purificatioun was sonar then the Leviticall law appointes.

From Project Gutenberg

The sonar equipment showed what kind of rock it was—iron and basalt.

From Project Gutenberg

Diciendo y haciendo, el pcaro sac del bolsillo cuatro piezas de plata y las hizo sonar.

From Project Gutenberg

Thus the sonar waves would appear to be striking no obstacle—and no echo would return to the sonarscopes on the search craft!

From Project Gutenberg

An invisible sub—one that sonar pulses would seem to pass right through, as if nothing were there!

From Project Gutenberg