How to Use sound barrier in a Sentence

sound barrier

noun
  • And the Air Force put them to work in studies of the sound barrier and space flight.
    David Fleshler, sun-sentinel.com, 19 May 2021
  • Chuck Yeager, the first person to break the sound barrier.
    Connor Hoffman, Car and Driver, 28 Oct. 2020
  • The flights were faster than the speed of sound, but didn't break the sound barrier because of surrounding wind speed.
    Caroline Delbert, Popular Mechanics, 10 Feb. 2020
  • This desert town on the western edge of the Mojave Desert is where Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947.
    Scott Oldham, Car and Driver, 15 Apr. 2020
  • Yeager’s feat was kept top secret for about a year when the world thought the British had broken the sound barrier first.
    NBC News, 8 Dec. 2020
  • In 1947, Chuck Yeager, the Air Force test pilot, became the first person to break the sound barrier.
    Matthew Hutson, The New Yorker, 25 June 2021
  • Fifty years ago, aviator Chuck Yeager was the first to break the sound barrier.
    Rob Verger, Popular Science, 8 Dec. 2020
  • Bynum made it to the end of the sound barrier on the Northside Drive exit ramp before disappearing off the side of the ramp.
    Chelsea Prince, ajc, 8 July 2022
  • Pence, himself the father and father-in-law of two airmen, praised the first man ever to break the sound barrier.
    Carly Roman, Washington Examiner, 15 Jan. 2021
  • Abahusayn talked of the need to build sound barriers to protect residents who live near the Grand Parkway.
    Karen Zurawski, Houston Chronicle, 31 Oct. 2017
  • Passengers will not hear or feel anything when the plane breaks the sound barrier, Boom says.
    Fortune, 17 Aug. 2022
  • The current debate isn’t over lifting the ban on breaking the sound barrier over land.
    Andrew Tangel, WSJ, 18 July 2018
  • After the war, the West Virginia native became a test pilot -- and the first person to break the sound barrier.
    oregonlive, 28 Dec. 2020
  • Zachary Harrell, a Navy spokesman, who noted that planes breaking the sound barrier are required to do it far off the coast.
    John Wilkens, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Mar. 2021
  • Unity also broke the sound barrier for the first time, hitting a top speed of Mach 1.87 during the powered flight.
    Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 5 Apr. 2018
  • Trying to set a land speed record or breaking the sound barrier struck me as goals worth aspiring to.
    Preston Lerner, Wired, 22 Mar. 2020
  • A few minutes later, police revealed the cause of the noise: a fighter plane breaking the sound barrier.
    Jerome Pugmire, chicagotribune.com, 30 Sep. 2020
  • When the airwaves were segregated, Nathaniel Adams Coles broke the racial sound barrier — not with a boom, but a baritone.
    CBS News, 24 Dec. 2020
  • Indeed, the late Gen. Chuck Yeager famously broke the sound barrier way back in 1947.
    Dan Reed, Forbes, 2 June 2021
  • In breaking the sound barrier, in Wolfe’s formulation, Yeager dared the demon in the thin air.
    Sig Christenson, San Antonio Express-News, 23 Dec. 2020
  • He was depicted breaking the sound barrier in the opening scene.
    New York Times, 7 Dec. 2020
  • Models are generally thought of as people who are seen and not heard, but every once in a while one of them breaks the sound barrier.
    Melanie Abrams, New York Times, 12 Oct. 2020
  • But the new project by United is keeping alive the dream that civilian passengers could soon break the sound barrier again — at least those with deep enough pockets.
    Stephen Collinson, CNN, 6 June 2021
  • But it’s the maritime equivalent of breaking the sound barrier for a sailing vessel, which relies only on wind, sails and the design of the hull.
    Michael Verdon, Robb Report, 27 Dec. 2021
  • Called the Low Boom Flight Demonstrator, the plane aims to achieve what its name suggests: reduce the ear-splitting, sonic boom that occurs when a plane breaks the sound barrier.
    Alex Stuckey, San Antonio Express-News, 12 Apr. 2018
  • Jacqueline Auriol of France broke the sound barrier later that year.
    Sophia Kishkovsky, New York Times, 15 Dec. 2017
  • These pockets of air pressure on the surface of the plane reach a point of maximum pressure at the front of the aircraft, followed by minimum pressure at the rear as the plane breaks the sound barrier.
    Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 23 Oct. 2017
  • More than 12 years ago, the British and French governments met to discuss the joint development of such an aircraft, once the passage through the sound barrier was proved to hold no terrors.
    J. A. Maxtone Graham, Popular Mechanics, 24 Sep. 2020
  • Just try to criticize the patriot who broke a military glass ceiling and the sound barrier.
    Katy Waldman, Slate Magazine, 8 Aug. 2017
  • That's a smoldering tractor trailer over the sound barrier wall.
    Chelsea Prince, ajc, 9 July 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'sound barrier.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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