A vibration or oscillating motion that opposes or cancels out another vibration, often used in noise-reduction technology.
From 'counter-' (opposing) and 'vibration' (oscillation), from Latin 'vibrare' (to shake). The term emerged in 20th-century engineering to describe wave interference.
Noise-canceling headphones work by creating countervibrations—they literally play the exact opposite sound wave, and when opposite waves meet, they annihilate each other in a physics principle called destructive interference.
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