Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An instrument for experimentally determining and exhibiting the number of vibrations of a sonorous body (as a string or tuning-fork) in a unit of time.
  • noun In psychophysics, an instrument for the production of accurately graded intensities of sound. The simplest form of phonometer is the sound-pendulum (which see). In Wundt's gravity-phonometer, ivory balls are dropped by electromagnetic releases from varying heights upon hard-wood plates.
  • noun A clockwork instrument swung in gimbals, so that its face is always horizontal, and on whose dial are certain marks indicating intervals at which a whistle or other signal should be made to announce the compass course of the vessel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Physics) An instrument for measuring sounds, as to their intensity, or the frequency of the vibrations.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An instrument for measuring sounds.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

phono- + -meter

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Examples

  • So it is only necessary to twist the phonometer about on its pivot until the sound is received most loudly in the horns and the band of light is greatest.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • Banging and pounding, we forged ahead, straining our eyes to watch the road, the distance, the time, and the phonometer all at once.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • Without the phonometer to warn us, it must inevitably have met us and blocked our escape over the road ahead.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

  • The sound enters the two horns of the phonometer, is focused at the neck, and strikes on a delicate diaphragm, behind which is a needle.

    The Treasure-Train 1908

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