the sine wave. A given sinusoidal waveform may be of intermediate phase, having both sine and cosine components. The term "damped sine wave" describes all such damped waveforms, whatever their initial phase.

The most common form of damping, which is usually assumed, is the form found in linear systems. This form is exponential damping, in which the outer envelope of the successive peaks is an exponential decay curve. That is, when the maximum points of each successive curve are connected, the result resembles an exponential decay function.