CONSONANT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Consonant

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/kˈɑnsənənt/ Listen

noun

Consonant n. An articulate sound which in utterance is usually combined and sounded with an open sound called a vowel; a member of the spoken alphabet other than a vowel; also, a letter or character representing such a sound. Note: Consonants are divided into various classes, as mutes, spirants, sibilants, nasals, semivowels, etc. All of them are sounds uttered through a closer position of the organs than that of a vowel proper, although the most open of them, as the semivowels and nasals, are capable of being used as if vowels, and forming syllables with other closer consonants, as in the English feeble, taken. All the consonants excepting the mutes may be indefinitely, prolonged in utterance without the help of a vowel, and even the mutes may be produced with an aspirate instead of a vocal explosion. Vowels and consonants may be regarded as the two poles in the scale of sounds produced by gradual approximation of the organ, of speech from the most open to the closest positions, the vowel being more open, the consonant closer; but there is a territory between them where the sounds produced partake of the qualities of both. Note: "A consonant is the result of audible friction, squeezing, or stopping of the breath in some part of the mouth (or occasionally of the throath.) The main distinction between vowels and consonants is, that while in the former the mouth configuration merely modifies the vocalized breath, which is therefore an essential element of the vowels, in consonants the narrowing or stopping of the oral passage is the foundation of the sound, and the state of the glottis is something secondary."

adjective

Consonant adj.

Having agreement; congruous; consistent; according; usually followed by with or to. "Each one pretends that his opinion... is consonant to the words there used." "That where much is given there shall be much required is a thing consonant with natural equity."

Having like sounds. "Consonant words and syllables."

(Mus.) Harmonizing together; accordant; as, consonant tones, consonant chords.

Of or pertaining to consonants; made up of, or containing many, consonants. "No Russian whose dissonant consonant name Almost shatters to fragments the trumpet of fame."

See images of 'Consonant'

Etymology of 'Consonant'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Consonant" Quotes from Famous Books

... was bad enough. I knew nothing about England, and the Court, and the noble families there; but, led away by the vaingloriousness of youth (and a propensity which I possessed in my early days, but of which I have long since corrected myself, to boast and talk in a manner not altogether consonant with truth), I invented a thousand stories which I told him; described the King and the Ministers to him, said the British Ambassador at Berlin was my uncle, and promised my acquaintance a letter of recommendation to him. When the officer asked me my uncle's name, I ...

— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray

... it is, at least, insinuated in the New Testament; that it is unanimously proclaimed by the Fathers of the Church; that it is embodied in all the ancient liturgies of the Oriental and the Western church, and that it is a doctrine alike consonant with our reason and eminently consoling to the ...

— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons

... which they are no more familiar. They cannot even pronounce simple English names like Cody, which they call "Coddy," in analogy with body, because they do not know that in a word of two syllables a single vowel followed by a single consonant is regularly long when accented. At the same time they will spell the word in all kinds of queer ways, which are in analogy only with exceptions, not with regular formations. Unless a person knows what the regular ...

— The Art Of Writing & Speaking The English Language - Word-Study and Composition & Rhetoric • Sherwin Cody

... articulately and distinctly, as if you were reading in public, and on the most important occasion. Recite pieces of eloquence, declaim scenes of tragedies to Mr. Harte, as if he were a numerous audience. If there is any particular consonant which you have a difficulty in articulating, as I think you had with the R, utter it millions and millions of times, till you have uttered it right. Never speak quick, till you have first learned to speak well. In short, lay aside every book, and every ...

— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield

... authority to form such arrangements with the Rajah of Benares for the better government and management of his zemindary, and to perform such acts for the improvement of the interest which the Company possesses in it, as he shall think fit and consonant to the mutual engagements subsisting between the Company and the Rajah"; and for this and other purposes he did invest himself with the whole power of the Council, giving to himself an authority as if his acts had been the acts of the Council ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

More quotes...