noise floor.

The background level of noise below which a signal becomes difficult to distinguish under specified conditions.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• the receiver’s noise floor
• below the noise floor

On the page

The signal lay close to the receiver’s noise floor.

Cooling the detector lowered the measured noise floor.

Usage notes

Primary category: sci-fi. Forms: Singular noise floor; plural noise floors. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.