Cacuminal

//kəˈkjuːmənəl// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A sound pronounced using a retroflexed tongue. dated
Adjective
  1. 1
    Pertaining to a point, top, or crown.
  2. 2
    Pronounced using a concave or retroflexed tongue; occasionally palatal sounds more generally. dated

    "1942, George Leonard Trager, Studies in Linguistics, Volumes 1-7, page 52, /L/ and /N/, slightly more cacuminal than the alveolar series, are very rare, and occur only in word-final position."

Adjective
  1. 1
    pronounced with the tip of the tongue turned back toward the hard palate wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
alveolararticulationaspirationassimilatedassimilationback

Example

More examples

"1942, George Leonard Trager, Studies in Linguistics, Volumes 1-7, page 52, /L/ and /N/, slightly more cacuminal than the alveolar series, are very rare, and occur only in word-final position."

Etymology

From cacūmin- (the stem of the Latin cacūmen (“extremity, point, peak”) + -al.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.