CONSONANT • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Consonant

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/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."

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Etymology of 'Consonant'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Consonant" Quotes from Famous Books

... hours of life, and when the fatal issue appeared but too certain the parents sat in agonized silence, watching the darling whom they could not save. Mrs. Fry begged earnestly of the Great Disposer of life and death that he would spare the child, if consonant with His holy will; but when the end came, and the child had passed "through the pearly gates into the city" she uttered an audible thanksgiving that she was at last where neither sin, sorrow, nor death could have any dominion. No words can do justice to this ...

— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman

... also regarded as inferior to Welsh. The Tudors' dislike of various tongues was as strong as their dislike of various jurisdictions. Henry VIII., in giving Welshmen the Act of 1535, says that the tongue of Owen Tudor is "nothing like ne consonant to the natural mother-tongue used within this realm," and enacts that all officials in Wales shall speak English. And, in the same spirit, the Welshman was told that the Kingdom of Heaven was now open to him, but that he must seek it in English, ...

— A Short History of Wales • Owen M. Edwards

... to repeat my thanks for the second copy of your tract on my father, and for your great condescension in altering the two passages to which I presumed to object; and which are not only more consonant to exactness, but, I hope, no disparagement to the piece. To me they are quite satisfactory. And it is a comfort to me too, that what I begged to have changed was not any reflection prejudicial to his memory; but, in the first point, a parallel not entirely similar ...

— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole

... which is at present confined to certain districts, both on the French and Spanish side of the Pyrenees, which are laved by the waters of the Cantabrian Gulf or Bay of Biscay. This language is commonly known as the Basque or Biscayan, which words are mere modifications of the word Euscarra, the consonant B having been prefixed for the sake of euphony. Much that is vague, erroneous, and hypothetical, has been said and written concerning this tongue. The Basques assert that it was not only the original language of Spain, but also of the world, ...

— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... worst of it, for he is far superior to me in intrigue. I shall fare better with him by my own unconcealed mode of fighting, which is new to him and puzzles him; besides it is better suited to my own nature, and more consonant to me than any other. He is not only sly, but is keen-witted, and he has at once connected the complaint which I have threatened to bring against him with the manuscript which Serapion, the recluse, gave me in his presence. ...

— Uarda • Georg Ebers

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