sound

What it means

1. 1.

   Of a person: decent, reliable, generous with no fuss. The highest ordinary compliment one Irish person pays another.

2. 2.

   As a one-word reply: thanks, or fine, that's settled.

In use

• He's a sound fella, he'd give you the shirt off his back.

• I'll drop it over to you later. — Sound.

  Note: 'Sound out' and 'sound as a pound' are emphatic versions.

Where it comes from

From the older English sense of sound as solid or trustworthy, as in 'of sound mind'. Ireland kept the human application after it faded elsewhere and made it the default word for approving of someone's character.

Other forms

Similar terms:

decent