Link Centre Dictionary

noise

UK/ˈnoɪ̯z/ US/ˈnɔɪ̯z/ common informal
noun (6) verb (1)

noun

1.

sound of any kind (especially unintelligible or dissonant sound)

  • “he enjoyed the street noises”
  • “they heard indistinct noises of people talking”
  • “during the firework display that ended the gala the noise reached 98 decibels”
2.

the auditory experience of sound that lacks musical quality; sound that is a disagreeable auditory experience

  • “modern music is just noise to me”
Synonyms
3.
4.

a loud outcry of protest or complaint

  • “the announcement of the election recount caused a lot of noise”
  • “whatever it was he didn”
5.

incomprehensibility resulting from irrelevant information or meaningless facts or remarks

  • “all the noise in his speech concealed the fact that he didn”
6.

verb

1.

Origin

From Middle English noyse, noise, from Old French noise (“a dispute, wrangle, strife, noise”), of uncertain origin. According to some, from Latin nausia, nausea (“disgust, nausea”); according to others, from Latin noxia (“hurt, harm, damage, injury”); but neither explanation is satisfactory in regard to either form or sense. Potentially a reduced form of Old French enoiier (“to bother, to disturb”), from Latin inodio (“to make repulsive”) - which would make it a doublet of English annoy (“to bother, to irritate”) and English ennui (“boredom, jadedness, depression”). Compare Piedmontese nojé (“to bother, to annoy”), though this fails to explain the final /z/. Displaced native Old English swēġ.

Phrases

  • 1/f noise
  • active noise cancellation
  • active noise control
  • azure noise
  • background noise
  • big noise
  • bistable noise
  • black noise

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.