sonar

sonar¹ to sound

Etymology tree of sonar¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin sonō

French sonner

Italian suonare

Spanish sonar

From the same root · sonar¹

English resonate ← sonō

Latin altisonus ← sonō

Latin assonō ← sonō

Latin circumsonō ← sonō

Latin cōnsonō ← sonō

Latin dissonō ← sonō

Latin exsonō ← sonō

Latin īnsonō ← sonō

Latin intersonō ← sonō

Latin obsōnō ← sonō

Latin personō ← sonō

Latin praesonō ← sonō

Latin resonō ← sonō

Latin sonitus ← sonō

Latin sonor ← sonō

Pronunciation

• /soˈnaɾ/, [soˈnaɾ]^[1]

Forms

sonar (first-person singular present sueno, first-person singular preterite soné, past participle sonado)^[1]

Etymology

The word for “to sound” is inherited from Latin sono (“to sound”); the Old Spanish form was already sonar.^[2][3][4][1] It is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese soar, Galician soar, Catalan sonar, French sonner, Italian suonare and Romanian suna.^[2][5][6] The stressed /o/ diphthongises as usual to ⟨ue⟩ in the present.^[7][1]

The Latin verb belongs to the first conjugation, but early Latin also had third-conjugation forms.^[8][9] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *swonaje/o- and Proto-Indo-European *swonh₂-éye/o- (“to resound”), an iterative of *swenh₂- (“to sound”), with cognates in Sanskrit स्वनति (svánati, “sounds”) and Old Irish seinnid (“plays an instrument”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where it means “to spread, be talked about”: „Las nuevas de mio Cid, sabet, sonando van” “The news of my Cid, know it, goes spreading”.^{[2][3][10][11]} The Cid also has the plain sense “to make a noise”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Berceo used it for fame spreading and for ringing a bell or blowing a horn.^[12] Alfonso X's prose already had the sense of a letter's value in pronunciation, “to be mentioned” and “to blow one's nose”, a sense Nebrija recorded in 1495.^[13][3] Covarrubias gave sonarse una cosa “to be rumoured” and cosa sonada “a much-talked-of affair”.^[14] Autoridades added “to play an instrument” and “to sound like, hint at”.^[7]

The colloquial “to ring a bell, seem familiar” is in the current dictionary.^[4] In the Southern Cone sonar means “to fail, come to a bad end” and “to die”, and in much of Spanish America and in Cantabria, “to hit someone”.^[4][15][16]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy).^[2][10]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses it for fame spreading.^[10][12]
• 1250–1300 – Alfonso X's prose has sonar “to blow the nose”.^[13][3]
• 1335 – first record of sonaja.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin sono.^[17]
• 1529 – the first record from the Americas, a letter from Mexico.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records cosa sonada.^[14]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades notes the diphthong of sueno, suena.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make a sound or noise: Sonó el timbre dos veces.^[4][1]
2. Of a letter, to be pronounced: La h no suena.^[4]
3. To be mentioned: Su nombre suena para el cargo.^[4][19]
4. To seem, have the look of something (sonar a): Eso suena a excusa.^[4][1]
5. Of words, to make a certain impression on the listener.^[4]
6. To be rumoured.^[4]
7. (colloquial) To seem vaguely familiar, ring a bell: Esa cara me suena.^[4][1]
8. (Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay, vulgar) To die or be mortally ill.^[4]
9. (Southern Cone, colloquial) To fail, come to a bad end.^[4][15]
10. (Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay) To suffer the consequences of a change.^[4]
11. (transitive) To play an instrument.^[4][1]
12. (transitive, mostly reflexive) To blow one's nose.^[4][1]
13. (transitive, Latin America) To hit, beat someone.^[15]

Word family

• sonadero
• sonador
• sonaja
• sonajero
• sonante
• sonable

sonar² sonar

Etymology tree of sonar²

inherited borrowed derived

English sonar

Spanish sonar

Pronunciation

• /soˈnaɾ/, [soˈnaɾ]^[1]

Forms

sonar m (plural sonares)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the underwater detection device is borrowed from English sonar, an English acronym of “sound navigation and ranging” “navigation and location by sound”.^[20][1][19] It was formed in English in 1946 on the pattern of radar.^[21][19]

Semantic evolution

The Academy defines it as an electro-acoustic apparatus that detects submerged objects by the waves they produce or by the echo of those it sends out.^[20] Asturian has the same word for the system and the device.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. (technology) sonar: an apparatus that detects and locates submerged objects by sound or ultrasound waves.^[20][19][1]