SONANT a.
breath sound; intonated; voiced; tonic; the opposite of nonvocal, or surd; -- sid of the vowels, semivowels, liquids, and nasals, and particularly of the consonants b, d, g hard, v, etc., as compared with their cognates p, t, k, f, etc., which are called nonvocal, surd, or aspirate. -- n.
SPIRANT n.
nasals m, n, ng; with the further exception, by others, of the liquids r, l, and the semivowels w, y; by others limited to f, v, th surd and sonant, and the sound of German ch, -- thus excluding the sibilants, as well as the nasals, liquids, and semivowels. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 197-208.
STRONG a. 2 definitions
o, or designating, a verb which forms its preterit (imperfect) by a variation in the root vowel, and the past participle (usually) by the addition of -en (with or without a change of the root vowel); as in the verbs strive, strove, striven; break, broke, broken; drink, drank, drunk. Opposed to weak, or regular. See Wea…
SUBTONIC a.
nguishing, a speech element consisting of tone, or proper vocal sound, not pure as in the vowels, but dimmed and otherwise modified by some kind of obstruction in the oral or the nasal passage, and in some cases with a mixture of breath sound; -- a term introduced by Dr. James Rush in 1833. See Guide to Pronunciation,…
SYLLABLE n.
mpulse of the voice, and constituting a word or a part of a word. In other terms, it is a vowel or a diphtong, either by itself or flanked by one or more consonants, the whole produced by a single impulse or utterance. One of the liquids, l, m, n, may fill the place of a vowel in a syllable. Adjoining syllables in a wo…
TENEMENT n.
may be held, so as to create a tenancy, as lands, houses, rents, commons, an office, an advowson, a franchise, a right of common, a peerage, and the like; -- called also free or frank tenements. The thing held is a tenement, the possessor of it a "tenant," and the manner of possession is called "tenure." Blackstone.…
TH n.
In Old English, the article the, when the following word began with a vowel, was often written with elision as if a part of the word. Thus in Chaucer, the forms thabsence, tharray, thegle, thend, thingot, etc., are found for the absence, the array, the eagle, the end, etc.
THIRD a.
ising men and women devoted to a rule of pious living, called the third rule, by a simple vow if they remain seculars, and by more solemn vows if they become regulars. See Tertiary, n., 1. -- Third person (Gram.), the person spoken of. See Person, n., 7. -- Third sound. (Mus.) See Third, n., 3.