binoculars
noun
Form of binocular , plural of binocular.
Simple meaning
A hand-held device made up of a series of lenses and prisms.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
buhnahkyuhlerzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
bəˈnɑkjəlɚz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A hand-held device consisting of a series of lenses and prisms, used to magnify objects so that they can be better seen from a distance, and looked at through both eyes.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- General and technical use
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: A hand-held device consisting of a series of lenses and prisms, used to magnify objects so that they can be better seen from a distance, and looked at through both eyes.
Used this way, binoculars is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use binoculars
- “We used binoculars to get a better view of the distant birds.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Relating to both eyes.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.