feedback

UK: /ˈfiːdbæk/ US: /ˈfidˌbæk/ ,(fēd′bak′)

WordReference Random House Learner's Dictionary of American English © 2025

feed•back /ˈfidˌbæk/   n. [uncountable]

1. a reaction or response to a process or activity:
   feedback from a speech.
2. information derived from such a reaction or response:
   to use the feedback from an audience survey.

WordReference Random House Unabridged Dictionary of American English © 2025

feed•back  (fēd′bak′), n. 

1. Electronics
   • the process of returning part of the output of a circuit, system, or device to the input, either to oppose the input (negative feedback) or to aid the input (positive feedback). 
   • See acoustic feedback. 
2. Computing the furnishing of data concerning the operation or output of a machine to an automatic control device or to the machine itself, so that subsequent or ongoing operations of the machine can be altered or corrected.
3. a reaction or response to a particular process or activity:
   He got very little feedback from his speech.
4. evaluative information derived from such a reaction or response:
   to study the feedback from an audience survey.
5. Psychology knowledge of the results of any behavior, considered as influencing or modifying further performance. Cf. biofeedback.
6. Physiology [Biol.] a self-regulatory biological system, as in the synthesis of some hormones, in which the output or response affects the input, either positively or negatively.

• noun, nominal use of verb, verbal phrase feed back 1915–20

Collins Concise English Dictionary © HarperCollins Publishers::

feedback / ˈfiːdˌbæk/ noun

1. the return of part of the output of an electronic circuit, device, or mechanical system to its input, so modifying its characteristics. In negative feedback a rise in output energy reduces the input energy; in positive feedback an increase in output energy reinforces the input energy
2. that part of the output signal fed back into the input
3. the return of part of the sound output by a loudspeaker to the microphone or pick-up so that a high-pitched whistle is produced
4. the whistling noise so produced
5. the effect of the product of a biological pathway on the rate of an earlier step in that pathway
6. information in response to an inquiry, experiment, etc