different between microphone vs quonk

English

Etymology

From micro- +? -phone.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?ma?.k???fo?n/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?ma?.k???f??n/

Noun

microphone (plural microphones)

1. A device (transducer) used to convert sound waves into a varying electric current; normally fed into an amplifier and either recorded or broadcast.
   • 1965: Charles McDowell, Campaign Fever: The National Folk Festival, from New Hampshire to November, 1964, page 11 (Morrow)

     Behind the tangled garden of microphones that had sprouted on the lectern, Goldwater spoke softly and casually about his family.

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:microphone.

Usage notes

• Metaphors for many microphones (such as can be observed at a press conference) include garden of microphones and sea of microphones. Wall of microphones is used both figuratively (of a group of reporters) and literally (a wall covered with microphones).

Synonyms

• (transducer of sound waves to electricity): mic, mike

Derived terms

• multimicrophone

Descendants

• ? Cantonese: ???
• ? Mandarin: ???
• ? Korean: ????? (maikeuropon)
• ? Lao: ???????? (mai kh?n f?n)
• ? Thai: ???????? (mai-kroo-foon)

Translations

Verb

microphone (third-person singular simple present microphones, present participle microphoning, simple past and past participle microphoned)

1. (transitive) To put one or more microphones on or in.

Synonyms

• mike, mike up, bug (if covert), wire up

Anagrams

• neomorphic, pheromonic

French

Etymology

micro- +? -phone.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mi.k??.f?n/

Noun

microphone m (plural microphones)

1. microphone

   Synonym: micro

Derived terms

• micro

Descendants

• ? Turkish: mikrofon

Further reading

• “microphone” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

English

Etymology

Imitative.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?kw??k/

Noun

quonk (uncountable)

1. Unwanted noise picked up by a microphone in a broadcasting studio.
2. Audience chatter that disturbs the performer.

Verb

quonk (third-person singular simple present quonks, present participle quonking, simple past and past participle quonked)

1. (intransitive) To produce unwanted noise.
   • 2004, Alastair Scott, Stuffed Lives

     The microphone quonked, caused the speakers to emit an electronic belch which looped and reverberated […]

2. (intransitive) To honk.
   • 1902, Cooper Ornithological Society, The Condor

     As we pushed among the reeds in the swamp, the grebes could be heard quonking in the buckbrush or beyond it.

   • 1999, Ronald Rompkey, Eliot Curwen, Labrador Odyssey

     […] no goose was heard there, but lower down we heard some "quonking," […]