noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A common measure of intensity ratio (e.g. for sound) that is one tenth of a bel on the logarithmic intensity scale. It is defined as dB = 10 log₁₀(P₁ / P₂), where P₁ and P₂ are the relative intensities.
2. 2
   a logarithmic unit of sound intensity; 10 times the logarithm of the ratio of the sound intensity to some reference intensity wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

db

Example

More examples

"The decibel scale is logarithmic."

Etymology

From deci- + bel.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.