Percussive
adj, noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A percussive phone.
"Percussives are articulations where two rigid or semirigid articulators are struck against each other to produce a short, sharp sound."
- 1 Characterized by percussion; caused by or related to the action of striking or pounding something.
"He massaged her shoulders with a gentle percussive action."
- 2 Produced by striking organs together, for example, smacking the lips or gnashing the teeth.
"Two additional, and much rarer, percussive articulations are represented by symbols in the extIPA chart. Their exclusion from the main IPA chart is an indication that they do not seem to occur as typical forms of adult speech in any part of the world, although they may have some communicative function. The symbol, [ʬ], is used to transcribe a bilabial percussive sound, which might be described in lay terms as lip-smacking."
- 1 involving percussion or featuring percussive instruments wordnet
Example
More examples"He massaged her shoulders with a gentle percussive action."
Etymology
From percuss + -ive.
Related phrases
More for "percussive"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.