Science & TechnologyGreek → English
Hydrophone
/ˈhaɪdrəfoʊn/noun
A microphone designed to pick up sound underwater.
The Greek roots
ὕδωρ
hýdōr
water
φωνή
phōnḗ
voice, sound
Literally: “water sound”
The story of the word
The instrument existed in the nineteenth century for listening to water in pipes, and then 1914 made it urgent: a submarine you cannot see can still be heard. Sound travels roughly four and a half times faster in seawater than in air and carries much further, which is why the ear beats the eye at sea. Whale researchers now hang the same devices off boats to record song, and to measure the shipping noise that drowns it.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → scientific coinage → English
- First recorded
- 19th century
Same family
hydranthydraulictelephonesymphony
In a sentence
A hydrophone dropped over the side picked up the pod twenty minutes before anyone saw a fin.