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Definition of "resonate" []

  • To exhibit or produce resonance or resonant effects. (verb-intransitive)
  • To evoke a feeling of shared emotion or belief: "It is a demonology [that] seems to resonate among secular and religious voters alike” ( Tamar Jacoby). (verb-intransitive)
  • To correspond closely or harmoniously: "Symbolism matters, especially if the symbols resonate with the larger message” ( William Greider). (verb-intransitive)
  • To cause to resound. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "resonate" in a sentence
  • "Don’t add any other words; just let the phrase resonate as broadly and as powerfully as possible."
  • "For the heroine's despair comes from feeling not that she will never fall "under another influence," but, less passively (and less idiomatically), that she will never "vibrate" (as in resonate) to such an influence — in the full sense of sympathetic vibration."
  • "Cornel West is one such intellectual that knows the meaning of the word “hope,” and his word resonate with me."