Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of or relating to the throat.
- adj. Having a harsh grating quality, as certain sounds produced in the back of the mouth.
- adj. Linguistics Velar.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to the throat; formed in or as in the throat: as, the guttural (superior thyroid) artery; a guttural sound; guttural speech.
- n. A sound or combination of sounds pronounced in the throat, or in the back part of the mouth toward the throat, as k; any guttural sound or utterance. In the English alphabet the so-called gutturals are k (written with k, c hard, q, and sometimes
ch ), g, and ng. They are also calledback palatals , or palatals simply, since the name guttural implies a false description, as if the sounds were actually made in the guttur or throat. The same name is given to similar sounds of other languages, also to rough or rasping sounds, as the German church
Wiktionary
- adj. Sounding harsh and throaty.
- adj. Of, relating to, or connected to the throat.
- n. A harsh and throaty spoken sound
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Of or pertaining to the throat; formed in the throat; relating to, or characteristic of, a sound formed in the throat.
- n. A sound formed in the throat; esp., a sound formed by the aid of the back of the tongue, much retracted, and the soft palate; also, a letter representing such a sound.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a consonant articulated in the back of the mouth or throat
- adj. relating to or articulated in the throat
- adj. like the sounds of frogs and crows
Etymologies
- French, from New Latin gutturālis, from Latin guttur, throat.
Examples
“The following glossolalic passage, spelled out phonetically, was made from that recording the phonetic symbol “?” refers to a guttural sound made in the back of the esophagus:”
“The only diacritical marks here employed are the acute accent for stressed syllables and the apostrophe between two vowels to indicate the glottic closure or interruption of sound (improperly sometimes called a guttural) that prevents the two from coalescing.”
“Arabic guttural, which is unknown in the other languages in which Latin roots predominate.”
Handbook of Universal Literature From the Best and Latest Authorities
“It is not to be doubted, but that in the original pronunciation gh has the force of a consonant deeply guttural, which is still continued among the Scotch.”
“The problem both of these horses had involved a disease called guttural pouch mycosis, or a fungal infection in the guttural pouch," said Herb Maisenbacher, an assistant clinical professor of cardiology at the university's veterinary medical centre.”
“ Yet, as I inched closer to the house I became sure that only one person ... or thing ... could make those kind of guttural vocalizations.”
“Swiss, does not consist in articulated sounds, nor is it accompanied by words; but is a simple melody formed by a kind of guttural intonation very closely resembling the tones of a flute.”
The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction Volume 13, No. 377, June 27, 1829
“And turning to his companion he poured a kind of guttural volley at him, which his comrade answered with a brisk return of heavy verbal fire.”
“There are birds that send a kind of guttural sound from their throats, such as the cuckoos and occasionally the blue jays.”
“It is a monastery," -- said a man of whom I asked the way, speaking in a curious kind of guttural patois, half French and half Spanish --”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘guttural’.
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Of sounds and voices
tongue, alveolar, plosive, full-voiced, sibilant, hissing, fricative, guttural, wharl, burr, velar, palatalize and 11 more...
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Mobying Along
looks like there's not an open Moby Dick list. So now there is.
hypos, Manhattoes, circumambulate, mole, grapnels, bowsprit, asphaltic, mazy, tranced, cataract, ungraspable, judgmatically and 227 more...
ecbrenner Guttural words are great for getting out aggression and anger. Just think of many curse words, especially the big one: the f-word. Though I find "duck" is better, with that hard "d" sound at the beginning. ;-) Mar 5, 2009
reesetee How nice. WeirdNet writes poetry. Kind of. Jan 8, 2009
vanishedone That's evocative, WeirdNet, but I'm not sure it's entirely helpful. Jan 8, 2009