white noise

Noun

Meaning

(nontechnically) Any nondescript noise used for background or to mask or drown out other noise.

(by extension) Speech that goes ignored or uncomprehended.

Synonyms

Hypernyms

Examples

On the fifth day, which was a Sunday, it rained very hard. I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty. Mark Haddon

There's no place you can go on the prairie that you don't hear the white noise of the wind, steady and rough as surf curling along a non-existant shore. Diane Ackerman

There's been some research in cognitive science, I'm told, that discloses that there have always been perhaps 10 to 15 percent of people who are, as Pascal puts it, so made that they cannot believe. To us, when people talk about faith, it's white noise. Christopher Hitchens

I'm a very self-conscious person; I think we all are, but I'm especially not very comfortable in my body. I always feel really weird and awkward on the street or on the stage. It has nothing to do with circumstances; it's just an ongoing psychological state, like white noise. Sufjan Stevens

I like it when it rains hard. It sounds like white noise everywhere, which is like silence but not empty. Mark Haddon

A 2014 study similarly warned that white noise machines often exceed the recommended noise limits for children — and can lead to hearing/speech problems. Source: Internet

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