Tenuis

//ˈtɛnjuːɪs// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A tenuis consonant.

    "The tenuis becomes aspirate in Low-German."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of Greek consonants, neither aspirated nor voiced, as [p], [t], not-comparable
  2. 2
    Of obstruents in other languages, not voiced, aspirated, glottalized, or otherwise different in phonation from the prototypical values of the voiceless IPA letters ([p], [t], [k], [f], [θ], [s], [ʃ], etc.). not-comparable

    "The superscript equal sign ˭ is here used to denote the Czech tenuis consonant, in this case the plosive [t˭], which lacks aspiration, in order to contrast it with its aspirated counterpart in English [tʰ]."

Example

More examples

"The superscript equal sign ˭ is here used to denote the Czech tenuis consonant, in this case the plosive [t˭], which lacks aspiration, in order to contrast it with its aspirated counterpart in English [tʰ]."

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from Latin tenuis (“thin, fine; weak”). Doublet of thin.

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