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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A consonant, such as f or s in English, produced by the forcing of breath through a constricted passage. Also called spirant.
  2. adj. Of, relating to, or being a fricative consonant.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Characterized by friction: said of those alphabetic sounds in which the conspicuous element is a rustling of the breath through a partly opened position of the organs, as s and sh, z and zh, f and v, th and Ŧh, and so on. They are sometimes divided into subclasses, as sibilants, like s and sh, and spirants, like f and verb
  2. Sounded by friction, as certain musical instruments. See instrument, 3 .
  3. n. A fricative consonant. See I., 1.

Wiktionary

  1. n. phonetics Any of several sounds produced by air flowing through a constriction in the oral cavity and typically producing a sibilant, hissing, or buzzing quality; a fricative consonant. English /f/ and /s/ are fricatives.
  2. adj. phonetics produced by air flowing through a restriction in the oral cavity.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. (Phon.) Produced by the friction or rustling of the breath, intonated or unintonated, through a narrow opening between two of the mouth organs; uttered through a close approach, but not with a complete closure, of the organs of articulation, and hence capable of being continued or prolonged; -- said of certain consonantal sounds, as f, v, s, z, etc.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a continuant consonant produced by breath moving against a narrowing of the vocal tract
  2. adj. of speech sounds produced by forcing air through a constricted passage (as `f', `s', `z', or `th' in both `thin' and `then')

Etymologies

  1. New Latin fricativus, from Classical Latin fricāre, present active infinitive of fricō ("I rub"). (Wiktionary)
  2. New Latin fricātīvus, from Latin fricātus, past participle of fricāre, to rub. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Now, considering the post you linked to regarding the potential phonetic realization of Minoan "d" and "z": would that man that "z" as a fricative is a "th" sound?”

    A Pre-Greek name for Odysseus

  • “With all the grace on offer, you quibble at the absence of the word "fricative"?”

    languagehat.com: THE AMBIENCE OF WORDS.

  • “I never noticed that "fricative" sounded close to a bad word, though, until I said it to my dad and he acted shocked.”

    languagehat.com: CLITICS.

  • “Similarly, "fricative" consonants are soft-sounding like the "f" in "five" and convey a sense of smallness, he says, while”

    Dose.ca Music briefs

  • “It's safest for this magazine's sanity if I substitute the words "chuffing" and "todd" for the concomitant seven- and four-letter words Bruce quietly drops everywhere, through habit rather than guile or anger; fricative and plosive, they're actually right in almost all contexts.”

    The Guardian: Bruce Robinson: 'I'm just going to take my liver for a wash'

  • “Yes, it's about a complete cessation of airflow with a sudden release -- a 'plosive' -- rather than a restriction causing 'fricative' turbulence.”

    Bukiet on Brooklyn Books

  • “The S is substituted there with an English H or the velar fricative that in Spanish is nowadays a J in many occasions.”

    7 The Journey Back « Unknowing

  • “But a Spanish J is not the equivalent of a Y, it is a velar fricative.”

    Gallstones of the Unexamined Life « Unknowing

  • “Two phonemes: a voiced dental fricative and a schwa.”

    Notes on Notes

  • “Yes, it makes Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls look like Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands, but Mohombi isn't about furrowing brows, he's about fun with a capital bilabial fricative.”

    The Guardian: Mohombi (No 845)

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‘fricative’ has been looked up 5160 times, loved by 4 people, added to 53 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 17.