English

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Etymology

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From Latin resonō.

Pronunciation

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Verb

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resonate (third-person singular simple present resonates, present participle resonating, simple past and past participle resonated)

  1. To vibrate or sound, especially in response to another vibration.
    The books on top of the piano resonate when he plays certain notes.
  2. (figurative) To have an effect or impact; to influence; to engender support.
    His words resonated with the crowd.
    • 2018 January 7, Stephanie Merritt, “Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich review – fertile ground for dystopian nightmares”, in The Guardian[1]:
      “The control of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet,” wrote Margaret Atwood earlier this year, on why her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale is resonating so forcefully in the age of Trump.
  3. (figurative) To agree or sympathise, not necessarily perfectly, usually with an emotion, an attitude, or an intellectual position.
    • 1976 Professor Rosenblith: U.S. DEPARTMENT of Health, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE DHEW Publication No. (NIH) 76-1138 Proceedings of Conferences
      I think the tone of concern, both within the outer and the inner circle here,. . . is obviously something that I resonate with. We're dealing with problems in decision-making and uncertainty...
    • 1989 J. Giles Milhaven: Good Anger. →ISBN
      Their readers certainly gain if they are ready to understand and feel with them in their poetry. When I read their text, I gain. I resonate with their wrath. I taste some of their sore satisfaction. I join respectfully the murderous fury they feel and express at brutal abuse... On the face of it, it is damn' peculiar. We approve and resonate with this individual's passion to get revenge. We would disapprove and be horrified by their actual getting it.
    • 1995 Handbook of spirituality for ministers: ed. Robert J. Wicks →ISBN
      I am frequently asked why the topic has assumed such major importance in Christian spirituality ... I resonate with the question. In my own Jesuit formation-largely before the council—I received no introduction to discernment. This is doubly strange since our founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, is the source of most current discussions with the "Rules of the Discernment of Spirits" found in his book...

      I often look to his life to find meaning for my own. I see how he had to have his solitude time and how he looked with love upon people in his work world... I resonate with the stories which tell of his human side: too weary to go into the village with the disciples to buy food, attempting to get away by boat from the crowds who continually surrounded him with their needs...
    • 1997 Linda Hogan: Conversations with American novelists / ed Kay Bonetti et al. →ISBN
      I walk every day, out around there, but I don't have the same connection to it that I do to the land in Oklahoma. I always say it's as if Oklahoma was my home before I was born. I feel a profound sense of connection to that place. The land that I resonate with is there.
    • 1997 Paths of Faithfulness Ed. Carol Ochs. →ISBN
      While I resonate with this mystical process — often even yearn for it, trying bits of it on my own — it's not so easy for me. I am not a mystic. I do not feel capable of such mystical pursuits.

Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Anagrams

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Latin

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Verb

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resonāte

  1. second-person plural present active imperative of resonō

Spanish

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Verb

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resonate

  1. second-person singular voseo imperative of resonar combined with te