Percuss

//pəˈkʌs// verb

verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To strike; to hit; to knock; to give a blow to. transitive

    "Solid bodies, if they be very softly percussed, give no sound."

  2. 2
    strike or tap firmly wordnet
  3. 3
    To impact. intransitive

    "Falling on the roof of the caravan, the hailstones percussed noisily."

  4. 4
    To attempt to divine the location or other quality of something by tapping on (an overlying surface). transitive

    "The doctor percussed his chest to determine whether he had pneumonia."

Synonyms

All synonyms
bangbumpbump intocannoncaromclash

Example

More examples

"Solid bodies, if they be very softly percussed, give no sound."

Etymology

From Latin percussus, past participle of percutiō (“to strike, to beat”), from per (“through”) + quatiō (“to shake, to strike”).

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