radar

The noun is derived from RADAR by anacronymic evolution. RADAR is an acronym of ra(dio) d(etection) a(nd) r(anging) which was coined by Lieutenant-Commander Samuel M. Tucker and Lieutenant-Commander F. R. Furth of the United States Navy in November 1940.^[1][2]

The verb is probably derived from the noun.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈɹeɪdɑː/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈɹeɪˌdɑɹ/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -eɪdɑː(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: ra‧dar

radar (countable and uncountable, plural radars) (originally US)

2. (uncountable) In full primary radar: a method of detecting a distant object and determining its position, velocity, or other characteristics by analysing radio waves (usually microwaves) which are sent towards the object and which reflect off its surfaces; also, the field of study of this method.

   Alternative form: RADAR (alternative letter-case form, dated)

   Hypernym: imaging

   Hyponyms: active radar, Doppler radar

   Coordinate terms: lidar (uses light waves), sodar (uses sound waves), sonar (uses sound waves)

   They were able to find the enemy fleet using radar.

   • 2020 January 1, Adam Hadhazy, “Achieving autonomy”, in Aerospace America‎^[2], archived from the original on 22 April 2025:

     Although operational environments profoundly differ, both kinds of autonomous vehicles, groundcraft and aircraft, will still rely on conceptually the same sorts of sensors — cameras, radar and lidar — to perceive surroundings in real time.

   2. (uncountable, by extension) In full secondary radar: a method of detecting a distant object and determining its position, velocity, or other characteristics by analysing signals transmitted by the object in response to radio waves sent towards the object.
   4. (countable) Often preceded by a descriptive word: a system using one of the above detection methods, differentiated by configuration or platform, frequency, power, and other technical attributes.

      The Ministry of Defence funded the development of an entirely new radar and improved avionics.

      • 2002, Brian Jonathan Wolk, “Producing Inconsistencies in Various Cases”, in Ohio Traffic Tickets are for the Birds: A Practical Defense Manual for Juveniles and Adults, Lincoln, Neb.: Writers Club Press, iUniverse, →ISBN, section 4 (Producing Inconsistencies), page 145:

        Evidence as to the audio monitor's reading is required to prove the [police] officer used the radar unit properly, and must be shown in order to secure a conviction for speeding when using radar.

        Referring to the use of a radar speed gun for detecting speeding vehicles.

   6. (countable) An installation of the apparatus for operating one of the above detection systems.

      Each of these aircraft has been upgraded with a new radar and a more powerful engine.

      • 1941 October 2, Arthur Krock, “The value of armament to merchant ships”, in The New York Times (C section)‎^[3], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 7 November 2025, page 24, column 5:

        [T]he [depth] bombs must be tied to a grid of listening devices, radars and plotting instruments.

4. (uncountable, by extension) Often preceded by a descriptive word: a natural (for example, in an animal such as a bat) or human-made detection method based on the analysis of reflected signals other than radio waves, as light waves or sound waves; (countable) an instance of this.
5. (countable, figurative) A superior ability to detect something; an awareness, an intuition.

   Hyponym: gaydar

   His sensitive radar for hidden alliances keeps him out of trouble.

   • 1949, Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman: Certain Private Conversations […], New York, N.Y.: Viking Press, →OCLC, Act II, page 100:

     Stanley: Geez, how'd ya know? / Happy: I got radar or something.

   • 2021 April 29, Jamie Jackson, “Edinson Cavani and Bruno Fernandes help Manchester United hit Roma for six”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian‎^[4], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 27 August 2025:

     It [a goal] came inside 50 minutes and moments later [Edinson] Cavani should have had a 12th. [Paul] Pogba and [Luke] Shaw combined before the left-back's cross teed up the striker but his radar was awry.

radar (third-person singular simple present radars, present participle radaring, simple past and past participle radared)

1. (transitive) To use a radar apparatus (noun noun sense 1, noun sense 1.1, or noun sense 2) on (someone or something); to scan (someone or something) with, or as if with, radar.
   • 1961, Irving Shulman, chapter 8, in West Side Story: A Novelization […], New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, published November 1967, →ISBN, page 137:

     This was no ordinary signal for help that Baby-John was radaring to outer space, but a call that had to be heeded, for he had just seen two hard guys go down for the final count— […]

   • 1991 January, Elizabeth Egloff, “Swan Play”, in Jocelyn Beard, editor, The Best Women’s Stage Monologues of 1990 (Applause Acting Series), Newbury, Vt.: Smith and Kraus, →ISBN, page 69:

     I don't think men are born on this planet. I think men are born on the planet Pluto and they have them molecularly disassembled and radar-ed to the earth.

   • 2002, Brian Jonathan Wolk, “Producing Inconsistencies in Various Cases”, in Ohio Traffic Tickets are for the Birds: A Practical Defense Manual for Juveniles and Adults, Lincoln, Neb.: Writers Club Press, iUniverse, →ISBN, section 4 (Producing Inconsistencies), page 156:

     You want to cross-examine an officer about his competence with regards to radar and the radar he used to ticket you with. He radars you while he's sitting in his patrol vehicle under a bridge.

   • 2021, Francisco Martínez, “Putting Objects to Work”, in Ethnographic Experiments with Artists, Designers and Boundary Objects: Exhibitions as a Research Method, London: UCL Press, →DOI, →ISBN, page 41:

     [I]n Humans Need Not to Count the artists Varvara & Mar presented a robot clicker counting the number of visitors to the gallery […] The piece also evoked the mythification of artificial intelligence, attributing wisdom and consciousness to what is, in the case of the installation, instrumental intelligence (the robotic hand merely does two moves: radaring and clicking).

• radar on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• Ardra

• erradar (nonstandard)

Borrowed from Spanish radar, from English radar.

• IPA^(key): /radar/ [ra.ð̞ar]
• Rhymes: -adar, -ar
• Hyphenation: ra‧dar

radar inan

1. radar

• “radar”, in Euskaltzaindiaren Hiztegia [Dictionary of the Basque Academy] (in Basque), Euskaltzaindia [Royal Academy of the Basque Language]

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [rəˈðar]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [raˈðar]

• Audio (Barcelona):

  (file)

radar m (plural radars)

1. radar

Borrowed from English radar.

radar m (uncountable)

1. radar

• “radar” in Cornish Dictionary / Gerlyver Kernewek, Akademi Kernewek.

• IPA^(key): [ˈradar]
• Rhymes: -adar
• Hyphenation: ra‧dar

radar m inan

1. radar
2. speed camera

Borrowed from English radar.

• IPA^(key): [ˈʁɑːdɑ]

radar c (singular definite radaren, plural indefinite radarer)

1. radar

• “radar” in Den Danske Ordbog

Borrowed from English radar.

• IPA^(key): /ˈraː.dɑr/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: ra‧dar

radar m (plural radars, diminutive radartje n)

1. radar (detection system operating by means of radio waves)

• dopplerradar
• neerslagradar

• IPA^(key): /ʁa.daʁ/

radar m (plural radars)

1. radar
2. a device that takes pictures of vehicles violating traffic laws, especially a speed camera

   Synonym: radar automatique

   • 2022 February 14, “Pollution sonore : les premiers radars antibruit testés à Paris”, in Le Monde:

     Inauguré lundi 14 février, ce radar sonore est le premier du genre installé dans la capitale, à titre expérimental.

     Inaugurated on Monday the 14th of February, this sound-radar is the first of its kind installed in the capital, on an experimental basis.

• radar automatique
• radar tourelle

• “radar”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

From English radar.

• IPA^(key): /raˈdaɾ/ [raˈð̞aɾ]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɾ

radar m (plural radares)

1. radar
2. speed camera

   Synonym: radar de tráfico

• antirradar
• radar de tráfico

• “radar”, in Dicionario da Real Academia Galega (in Galician), A Coruña: Royal Galician Academy, 2012–2026

• IPA^(key): /ˈraːtar/
• Rhymes: -aːtar
• Homophone: ratar

radar m (genitive singular radars, nominative plural radarar)

1. radar device

   Synonym: ratsjá

From English radar.

• (Standard Indonesian) IPA^(key): /ˈradar/ [ˈra.dar]
• Rhymes: -adar
• Syllabification: ra‧dar

radar (plural radar-radar)

1. radar (method of detecting distant objects)

• “radar”, in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia [Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language] (in Indonesian), Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016

Borrowed from English radar.

• IPA^(key): /ˈra.dar/
• Rhymes: -adar
• Hyphenation: rà‧dar

radar m (invariable)

1. radar

rādar

1. first-person singular future passive indicative of rādō

From English radar.

radar m (definite singular radaren, indefinite plural radarer, definite plural radarene)

1. radar

• radarbilde
• værradar

• “radar” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From English radar.

radar m (definite singular radaren, indefinite plural radarar, definite plural radarane)

1. radar

• “radar” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Borrowed from English radar.

• IPA^(key): /ˈra.dar/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -adar
• Syllabification: ra‧dar

radar m inan (related adjective radarowy)

1. radar (method of detecting distant objects)
2. radar (installation of such a system or of the transmitting and receiving apparatus)

• radar in Wielki słownik języka polskiego, Instytut Języka Polskiego PAN
• radar in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Borrowed from English radar.

• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Hyphenation: ra‧dar

radar m (plural radares)

1. radar (radio device for detecting distant objects)
2. ellipsis of radar de velocidade (“speed camera”)

For quotations using this term, see Citations:radar.

• “radar”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “radar”, in Dicionário infopédia da Lingua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2026
• “radar”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026
• “radar”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2026, →ISBN

Borrowed from English radar.

• IPA^(key): /ˈra.dar/

radar n (plural radare)

1. radar

• IPA^(key): /râdaːr/
• Hyphenation: ra‧dar

rȁdār m inan (Cyrillic spelling ра̏да̄р)

1. radar

• IPA^(key): /ràːdar/, /ráːdar/

rādar m inan

1. radar

The diacritics used in this section of the entry are non-tonal. If you are a native tonal speaker, please help by adding the tonal marks.

Masculine inan., soft o-stem
nom. sing.	rádar
gen. sing.	rádarja
	singular	dual	plural
nominative (imenovȃlnik)	rádar	rádarja	rádarji
genitive (rodȋlnik)	rádarja	rádarjev	rádarjev
dative (dajȃlnik)	rádarju	rádarjema	rádarjem
accusative (tožȋlnik)	rádar	rádarja	rádarje
locative (mẹ̑stnik)	rádarju	rádarjih	rádarjih
instrumental (orọ̑dnik)	rádarjem	rádarjema	rádarji

• “radar”, in Slovarji Inštituta za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša ZRC SAZU, portal Fran
• “radar”, in Termania, Amebis
• See also the general references

Borrowed from English radar.

• IPA^(key): /raˈdaɾ/ [raˈð̞aɾ]
• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: ra‧dar

radar m (plural radares)

1. radar
   • BBC Mundo. Desaparece avión sobre el Atlántico 2009-06-01.

     Un avión ... desapareció este lunes del control de los radares.

     A plane ... disappeared this Monday from control of radars.

2. speed camera

   Synonyms: radar de tráfico, radar de velocidad

• “radar”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025

From English radar.

• IPA^(key): /¹rɑːdar/

radar c

1. radar

• Plural forms are rare.

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

radar

1. present of rada

• radar in Svenska Akademiens ordböcker

• darra

Borrowed from English radar, originally an acronym for “radio detection and ranging”, with the stress influenced by Spanish radar.

• (Standard Tagalog) IPA^(key): /ɾaˈdaɾ/ [ɾɐˈd̪aɾ]
• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: ra‧dar

radár (Baybayin spelling ᜇᜇᜇ᜔)

1. radar

   Synonym: siglap

• “radar”, in Pambansang Diksiyonaryo | Diksiyonaryo.ph, 2018

From English radar, attested from 1945.

radar (definite accusative radarı, plural radarlar)

1. (aviation) radar

• Nişanyan, Sevan (2002–), “radar”, in Nişanyan Sözlük

radar (plural radarlar)

1. radar

radar f

1. radar