bleep

Sound replacing curses

Bleep is a short, high-pitched electronic tone—the sound a machine makes to signal something: The microwave bleeped when it finished.

In broadcasting, a bleep replaces profanity or sensitive information, and to bleep is to censor this way: They bleeped out the swear words.

As a euphemism, bleep substitutes for any taboo word: What the bleep is going on?

sound

tone

Quality of sound

beepShort electronic tone
chirpShort, high avian sound
pingBrief metallic tone

blip · chime · buzz · alert · notification · electronic · digital · high-pitched · short · sharp

euphemism

damn

Mild expletive

hellUnderworld of suffering
shootDischarge or capture
crapWorthless material or nonsense

darn · heck · fudge · freaking · flipping · blanking · placeholder · substitute · minced · softened

machine

scanner

Device that reads data

monitorDisplay or supervisor
heartCirculatory system's pump
EKGCardiac electrical recording

radar · sonar · detector · medical · equipment · readout · pulse · diagnostic · hospital · device

Categories

alert soundsalarm, beep, buzzer, chime, doorbell
attention soundsahem, hey, pssst, psst, yo
sound effectssound effects, sound effect, ringtone, boing, crash
NHSNHS, GP, A&E, 999, 111
Electronic Soundsbeep, blip, bloop, buzz, chime
minced oathsdarn, heck, gosh, shoot, dang

Opposites

sound function

Not audio-redacted

explicit content

censorship action

Transmitted media signal

accept · air · permit · allow · include

audio presence

Total lack of sound

dead air · mute · nothing · quiet

Phrases

bleep outCensor audio with tones
bleeped out
bleep testFitness endurance assessment

Family

bleeping, bleeped, bleeps, bleeper

Familiarity: Top 50,000
Profile: Known to kids · Used worldwide · Timeless · Concrete · Everyday, not technical · Rated G