How to Use the sound barrier in a Sentence

the sound barrier

noun
  • His feat was kept secret for about a year when the world thought the British had broken the sound barrier first.
    — ABC News, 16 June 2026
  • Earlier this year, the XB-1 demonstrator broke the sound barrier for the first time.
    — Chris Young, Interesting Engineering, 22 June 2026
  • The timepiece endured low pressure and temperature and a free-fall speed of 821 mph, above the sound barrier.
    — Lily Templeton, Footwear News, 3 Sep. 2019
  • After the first collision, Beavers' truck continued north, rolled onto its left side, and hit the sound barrier wall on the right shoulder.
    — Christopher Harris, CBS News, 3 Apr. 2026
  • In 1947, with its X-1 plane, the team became the first in the history of human flight to break the sound barrier.
    — Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2026
  • Breaking the sound barrier without breaking hardware moves us a step closer to fully exploiting this new mode of planetary exploration.
    — ArsTechnica, 8 May 2026
  • But from 42 knots upwards is where hydrofoiling craft hit their equivalent of the sound barrier — cavitation.
    — Andrew Rice, New York Times, 7 May 2026
  • Green, a former Royal Air Force fighter pilot, remains the only person ever to break the sound barrier on land.
    — Chloe Mayer, MSNBC Newsweek, 4 Aug. 2025
  • The loud crack-crack of the rocket boosters’ return breaking the sound barrier could be heard in parts of Central Florida about eight minutes after liftoff.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 29 Apr. 2026
  • The loud crack-crack of the rocket boosters’ return breaking the sound barrier could be in store for parts of Central Florida about eight minutes after liftoff.
    — Richard Tribou, The Orlando Sentinel, 26 Apr. 2026
  • That included one dazzling extended jam after another that broke barriers — including some threats of breaking the sound barrier, given the speed of the playing — and pushed boundaries.
    — Piet Levy, jsonline.com, 9 Aug. 2025
  • On Mars, where the thin, cold atmosphere is mostly CO2, the sound barrier sits closer to 869 km/h (540 mph).
    — Omar Kardoudi may 13, New Atlas, 13 May 2026
  • In 2023, China’s ‘electromagnetic sledge’ system became the first large-scale electromagnetic launcher to break the sound barrier.
    — Chris Young, Interesting Engineering, 26 Jan. 2026
  • Hypersonic missiles capable of flying well in excess of five times the speed of sound promise to revolutionize warfare and aviation in general in a manner not seen since the sound barrier was broken in 1947.
    — New Atlas, 24 Sep. 2025
  • Hypersonic flight may seem like the biggest shove to the envelope since the sound barrier was broken in 1947 and rotating detonation may look like a quantum leap in propulsion, but combining the two shows how far both of these have come in recent years.
    — New Atlas, 14 Jan. 2026
  • The experimental supersonic aircraft, developed in partnership with Lockheed Martin, broke the sound barrier during two separate test flights in June.
    — Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 16 June 2026
  • To manage this risk, the Ingenuity team strictly capped rotational speeds at 2,700 rpm and maintained a safety buffer to avoid the unpredictable physics of the sound barrier and potential turbulence from Martian dust devils.
    — Mrigakshi Dixit, Interesting Engineering, 8 May 2026
  • Beyond the sound barrier, severe aerodynamic, mechanical, and thermodynamic complexities are introduced.
    — David Szondy june 04, New Atlas, 4 June 2026
  • The F-15s will now be used to support research flights of NASA's new X-59 'quiet' supersonic jet, an aircraft designed to fly at supersonic speeds without producing the thunderous sonic booms typically associated with breaking the sound barrier.
    — Julian Dossett, Space.com, 27 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'the 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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