the sound barrier

noun

: the large increase in air resistance that occurs as an aircraft nears the speed of sound and that was once an obstacle to traveling faster than the speed of sound

a plane that is able to break the sound barrier

Examples of the sound barrier in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Ship started reentering our planet's atmosphere about two hours and 40 minutes after launch and went subsonic — breaking the sound barrier, in the fast-to-slow direction — 26 minutes later. — Mike Wall, Space.com, 28 Sep. 2026

Breaking the sound barrier is only the beginning Making a passenger aircraft fly at Mach 2 is considerably more complicated than demonstrating supersonic flight with a fighter or small experimental aircraft. — Bojan Stojkovski, Interesting Engineering, 20 Sep. 2026

The French Concorde 001 broke the sound barrier and went on to become a commercial supersonic aircraft, flying passengers across the Atlantic at twice the speed of sound for more than two decades. — USA Today, 15 Sep. 2026

Andy Green is the only person to ever break the sound barrier on land. — Adam Kovac, Scientific American, 11 Aug. 2026

Rhymes for the sound barrier

• noncarrier
• carrier