What does sonography mean?
Sonography is the use of high-frequency sound waves to create images of structures inside the body. In medical settings, it is commonly known as ultrasound imaging or ultrasonography and is used to examine organs, blood vessels, developing fetuses, and other internal tissues without surgery. The technique works by sending sound waves into the body and detecting the echoes that return from boundaries between tissues. These echoes are converted into images and other measurements for diagnosis and monitoring. Sonography is especially associated with obstetric and abdominal examinations, as well as echocardiography and other specialized procedures. The word is formal and technical, whereas “ultrasound” is the more familiar everyday term. Although usually treated as an uncountable process, “sonography” can occasionally be used in the plural when referring to separate examinations or imaging studies. A sonogram is the resulting image, not the process itself.
nounSonography is the use of high-frequency sound waves to produce images of structures inside the body, especially for medical diagnosis. It is also known as ultrasonography and is commonly called ultrasound imaging.
- The medical imaging of internal body structures using high-frequency sound waves.
"The clinic used abdominal sonography to examine the patient's gallbladder."
"Obstetric sonography was used to monitor the developing fetus."
"The report described the findings of the cardiac sonography in detail."
The plural is grammatically possible but uncommon; “sonographic examinations” or “ultrasound studies” is often clearer in ordinary usage.
"The hospital conducted two sonographies on different patients."
Sonography is medicine's way of seeing with echoes: it sends sound waves into tissue and reads the returning echoes as images.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Where does sonography come from?
Sonography is a 20th-century formation combining son-, derived from Latin sonus, meaning “sound,” with -graphy, from Greek graphein, meaning “to write” or “to describe.” It developed alongside the medical application of high-frequency sound waves for producing images of structures inside the body. Its relatives sonogram, sonographer, and ultrasonography use the same basic sound-and-imaging idea, with ultrasonography making the imaging method explicit.
Related word forms
How sonography is actually used
This is a formal technical term used especially in medicine and medical imaging. In general usage, “ultrasound” is more common, while “sonography” often emphasizes the imaging technique or its diagnostic use. The word is used across British and American English, with no major regional difference in meaning.
Easily confused with sonography
Sonography is the imaging technique, whereas a sonogram is the image produced by that technique.