palatal

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Of or relating to the palate.
2. adj. Linguistics Produced with the front of the tongue near or against the hard palate, as the (y) in English young.
3. adj. Linguistics Produced with the blade of the tongue near the hard palate, as the (ch) in English chin.
4. adj. Linguistics Produced with the front of the tongue in a forward position. Used of a vowel.
5. n. Linguistics A palatal sound.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. In anatomy, of or pertaining to the palate; palatine: as, palatal arteries, nerves, muscles; the palatal plate of the maxillary bone. Also palatial.
2. Uttered by the aid of the palate, as certain sounds. See II., 2.
3. n. A palatine bone or palate-bone proper, one of a pair, right and left, of facial bones entering into the formation of the hard palate. They exhibit the utmost diversity of shape and relative size, hut preserve constant position and relation in the bony framework of the upper jaw, where they are interposed between the supramaxillary bones in front and the pterygoid bones behind, and thus form an integral part of the preoral visceral arch. In their simplest form, the palatals are mere rods or plates extending horizontally from the pterygoids to the maxillaries. Their connection with the latter is closest, most frequently by fixed suture or ankylosis; with the former it is usually freer, often by movable articulation. There are many modifications of these bones in the lower vertebrates, and in the higher the tendency is to shortening, widening, heightening, and complete fixation, with some connections not acquired in lower animals. Such modifications reach a climax in man, where the palatals have a singular shape somewhat like the letter L, and very extensive articulations with no fewer than five other bones—the sphenoid, ethmoid, supramaxillary, maxilloturbinal, vomer—and with each other. The bone here consists of a horizontal part, or palatal plate, which extends mesad and meets its fellow of the opposite side, thus forming the back part of the bony palate, and of a vertical plate which reaches into the orbit of the eye by a part called the orbital process. Each bone thus enters into the formation of the walls of three cavities, of the mouth, nose, and eye; it also assists to form three fossæ, the zygomatic, sphenomaxillary, and pterygoid; it bounds part of the sphenomaxillary fissure, and contributes to closure of the orifice of the antrum of Highmore. The bone furnishes attachment in man to the azygos uvulæ muscle, the tensor palati, the superior constrictor of the pharynx, and both internal and external pterygoid muscles. Notwithstanding its complexity of figure and relations, it is a simple or single bone, developed in membrane from one center of ossification. See cuts under Anura, craniofacial, Crotalus, desmognathous, dromæognathous, Felidæ, palatoquadrate, Physeterinæ, Python, and sphenoid.
4. n. A sound usually produced by the upper surface of the tongue against a part of the palate further forward than that at which our kand g are made; but sometimes used of any sound made between the tongue and any part of the hard or soft palate. Thus, the German ch of ich is called palatal, and that of ach guttural; the Sanskrit has palatal sounds distinguished from gutturals; our i and e and y are called palatal, as also the compound ch and j. The term is a loose one, and requires definition as used by any authority.
5. Situated on the outer lip, as the teeth at the aperture of a shell.

Wiktionary

1. adj. anatomy Pertaining to the palate.
2. adj. dentistry, not comparable Of an upper tooth, on the side facing the palate.
3. adj. phonetics Articulated at the hard palate.
4. n. phonetics A palatal consonant.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Of or pertaining to the palate; palatine.
2. adj. (Phonetics) Uttered by the aid of the palate; -- said of certain sounds, as the sound of k in kirk.
3. n. (Phon.) A sound uttered, or a letter pronounced, by the aid of the palate, as the letters k and y.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. relating to or lying near the palate
2. adj. produced with the front of the tongue near or touching the hard palate (as `y') or with the blade of the tongue near the hard palate (as `ch' in `chin' or `j' in `gin')
3. n. a semivowel produced with the tongue near the palate (like the initial sound in the English word `yeast')