Waveform

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A representation of varying amplitude and frequency of a signal as a function of time in graphical form
2. The graphical portrayal of an oscillating signal where amplitude varies over time, often used in audio and electronics
3. An illustration depicting the changes of an electrical signal over time, showing how its amplitude and frequency fluctuate

Etymology: "Waveform" is a plain compound: "wave" joined to "form," with the sense of a wave's shape. The first element is the familiar English "wave," which goes back to Old English "wæg," while "form" comes into English from Old French "forme" and ultimately from Latin "forma," meaning shape or figure. Put together, the word names the outline a wave makes when it is plotted, whether that wave is water moving across a surface or an electrical signal traced on a graph. The compound's usefulness comes from the way it lets one picture stand for many different phenomena. A sine wave, a square wave, and a sawtooth are all waveforms, and an engineer can describe a sound, a radio carrier, or a heartbeat trace using the same vocabulary because the shape of the oscillation matters more than what is oscillating.

Synonyms: signal form, wave shape, oscillation pattern