Definition of "acoustics"

"Acoustics, then, or the science of sound, is a very consderable branch of physics, and one which has been cultivated from the earliest ages.

1831, John Herschel, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green: Paternoster Row, and John Taylor, Upper Gower Street, page 248