sounding

from The Century Dictionary.

• Causing or producing sound; sonorous; resounding; making a noise.
• Having a magnificent or lofty sound; hence, bombastic: as, mere sounding phrases.
• noun The act of producing a sound or a noise; also, a sound or a noise produced; specifically, in music, compare sounds, intransitive verb, 2.
• noun In astronomy, the investigation of the probable distance of the boundaries of the stellar universe by enumerating the number of stars visible in different regions in the field of a given telescope or on a photographic plate.
• noun The act or process of measuring the depth of anything; exploration, as with a plummet and line, or a sound.
• noun The descent of a whale or of a fish to the bottom after being harpooned or hooked.
• noun plural The depth of water in rivers, harbors, along shores, and even in the open seas, which is ascertained in the operation of sounding.
• noun In comparatively shoal water: said of a whale in the Arctic Ocean. Bering Sea, Sea of Okhotsk, or in bays, lagoons, etc., whose depths may be readily fathomed.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Making or emitting sound; hence, sonorous.
• noun The act of one who, or that which, sounds (in any of the senses of the several verbs).
• noun measurement by sounding; also, the depth so ascertained.
• noun Any place or part of the ocean, or other water, where a sounding line will reach the bottom; -- usually in the plural.
• noun The sand, shells, or the like, that are brought up by the sounding lead when it has touched bottom.
• noun the plummet at the end of a sounding line.
• noun a line having a plummet at the end, used in making soundings.
• noun (Mus.) a small post in a violin, violoncello, or similar instrument, set under the bridge as a support, for propagating the sounds to the body of the instrument; -- called also sound post.
• noun (Naut.) a rod used to ascertain the depth of water in a ship's hold.
• noun within the eighty-fathom line.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The action of the verb to sound.
• noun Testing with a probe or sonde.
• noun A measured depth of water.
• noun The act of inserting of a thin metal rod into the urethra of the penis for medical or sexual purposes
• noun Any place or part of the ocean, or other water, where a sounding line will reach the bottom.
• noun The sand, shells, etc. brought up by the sounding lead when it has touched bottom.
• adjective Emitting a sound.
• verb Present participle of sound.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the act of measuring depth of water (usually with a sounding line)
• adjective appearing to be as specified; usually used as combining forms
• adjective making or having a sound as specified; used as a combining form
• noun a measure of the depth of water taken with a sounding line
• adjective having volume or deepness