noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A non-sibilant fricative. dated

   "Spirant consonants are those in which the mouth passage is simply narrowed without any actual contact."

2. 2
   a continuant consonant produced by breath moving against a narrowing of the vocal tract wordnet

Adjective

1. 1
   of speech sounds produced by forcing air through a constricted passage (as ‘f’, ‘s’, ‘z’, or ‘th’ in both ‘thin’ and ‘then’) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

fricativecontinuantcontinuantfricativefricativefricative consonant

Example

More examples

"Ef was probably a bilabial, not a labiodental spirant, as is also evident from Goth."

Etymology

From Latin spirans, present participle of spīrō (“I blow”). Compare inspire, expire, respiration, etc.

Related phrases

spirant mutation

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