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# sonar

«sonar» in Mova's school dictionary: **a way of finding things under water by sending out sound…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (sonar; uncountable)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Sonar is a way of finding things under water by sending out sound waves and listening for their echoes. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#m1)

2) Sonar is also the machine that does this, used by ships and submarines. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#m2)

3) Animals such as bats and dolphins use a natural kind of sonar called echolocation. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In science lessons about sound, sonar shows that sound travels through water and bounces back as an echo; the time the echo takes tells the distance. Ships use sonar to measure the depth of the sea, find fish or find wrecks. Phrases: «sonar system», «on sonar», «use sonar».

### examples

- The submarine used sonar to find the shipwreck. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#x1)
- Fishing boats use sonar to find shoals of fish. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#x2)
- Bats use a kind of natural sonar to catch moths. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#x3)
- The sonar screen showed a large shape below the ship. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#x4)
- Sonar works by sending out sound and listening for the echo. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#x5)
- Dolphins find food with echolocation, which is like sonar. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/#x6)

### note

Uncountable. It is short for «sound navigation and ranging». In maths problems: the echo goes there and back, so to find the distance, halve the total distance the sound travels (distance = speed × time ÷ 2).

### In the corpora

- [Sonar sends a ping and times the echo; sound travels about four times faster in water than in air.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/biology/230-echolocation-in-the-sea-and-in-people-dolphins-whales-swiftlets-and-clicking-humans/7/)
- [Ships use echoes under water, called sonar, and doctors use very high sounds, called ultrasound, to see inside the body.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/physics/17-what-sound-is-wobbles-in-the-air/13/)
- [Sonar sends sound pulses down and listens for echoes from the seabed or fish; dolphins and bats use echoes in a similar way.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/technology/24-ships-ports-and-submarines/20/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «sonar» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/sonar/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.