Did you know?
The letter sequence "v-e-r-b" in reverberate might make you think at first of such word-related brethren as proverb, verbal, and verbose, all of which derive from the Latin noun verbum, meaning "word." In fact, reverberate comes from a much different source: the Latin verb verberare, meaning "to whip, beat, or lash," which is related to the noun verber, meaning "rod." Reverberate entered the English language in the 15th century, and one of its early meanings was "to beat, drive, or cast back." By the early 1600s, it began to appear in contexts associated with sound that repeats or returns the way an echo does.
Examples of reverberate in a Sentence
Burgess Everett, semafor.com, 8 Jan. 2026
There’s a bodily reverberating that is beyond control.
—Bettina Funcke, Artforum, 7 Jan. 2026
With the lasting impacts from the Palisades Fire still reverberating through Los Angeles a year later, Mayor Karen Bass reflected upon one of the state's worst natural disasters through an optimistic lens focused on rebuilding.
—Tom Wait, CBS News, 6 Jan. 2026
The Chinese oil tanker that changed course away from Venezuela demonstrates how our actions will reverberate beyond Latin America, reducing China’s access to cheap energy and removing one of Russia’s few friends in the world.
—Colin Pascal, Baltimore Sun, 5 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for reverberate
Cite this Entry
“Reverberate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reverberate. Accessed 16 Jan. 2026.
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