Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, or being a speech sound produced by complete closure of the oral passage and subsequent release accompanied by a burst of air, as in the sound (p) in pit or (d) in dog.
- n. A plosive speech sound.
Wiktionary
- n. phonetics Sound produced from opening a previously closed oral passage; for example, when pronouncing the sound /p/ in "pug".
- adj. phonetics Produced in this way.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a consonant produced by stopping the flow of air at some point and suddenly releasing it
Etymologies
- From explosive. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Yes, it's about a complete cessation of airflow with a sudden release -- a 'plosive' -- rather than a restriction causing 'fricative' turbulence.”
“On the Cosmos series he said the word "billion" with a pronounced, plosive "b" which many took to be a speech defect.”
“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'
“Perhaps the voiced bilabial plosive suggests the last and energetic verb (I know the withheld verbs create suspense).”
“Point is, if the model is accurate it's like describing how sounds are articulated phonetically, how the/b/sound is a voiced bilabial plosive.”
“Most of the time, we can differentiate between a “b” and a “p” sound over the phone, even though the audio cues that make the difference between these voiced on unvoiced plosive consonants live in the higher frequencies that are lost over phone circuits.”
“I found that I needed a “pop filter,” which cuts down on the plosive “p” sound and sibilance.”
“Tennant said that as he said everything here: with a vigorous enunciation and plosive push that was the aural equivalent of Space Dust on your tongue.”
“To the foreign Celtic ear, it could very well sound more like their [g-] than their [kʰ-] did since their plosive contrast was one primarily of voice, not of aspiration as among the Etruscans.”
“In Arabic, there is no "p" sound (voiceless bilabial plosive), so it is often replaced with a "b" sound (voiced bilabial plosive).”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘plosive’.
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Logolepsy
"Luciferous Logolepsy is a collection of over 9,000 obscure English words. Though the definition of an 'English' word might seem to be straightforward, it is not. There exist so many adopted, deriv...
Anschauung, Areopagus, Argus, Briarean, Dei gratia, Dei judicium, Deo volente, Duecento, Foehn, Geflugelte Worte, Gegenschein, Hakenkreuz and 9230 more...
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Lyngwistix
semantic, semiotic, linguistic, etc.
lexeme, sonorant, prosody, monophthong, portmanteau, dithyramb, inflection, deixis, mondegreen, screed, persiflage, polysemy and 42 more...
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Of sounds and voices
tongue, alveolar, plosive, full-voiced, sibilant, hissing, fricative, guttural, wharl, burr, velar, palatalize and 29 more...
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one-word band names
please make up a new one-word band and post it to this list. thanks!
figgles, crumbuggers, forgs, fargles, forbes, meemaws, mime-osas, merkins, cadaver, karl, roombas, prudishals and 16 more...
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song & sound
susurrous, calypso, rhapsody, plosive, susurrus, rhotic, caterwaul, plashing, azan, syncopation, aria, neume and 16 more...
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head
words for head
( open list, randomness )
also see:
http://www.wordnik.com/lists/mentally-irregularnoggin, gourd, brain, cranium, melon, skull, upstairs, attic, crown, roof, mind, plosive and 15 more...
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the beat & the break
words relating to rhythm
syncope, ascensional, sonant, syncopate, assonance, caesura, prosody, modulation, cadence, rhythm, interval, clitter and 34 more...
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exlotuseater's Words
autocthonous, anacoluthon, benthic, bactrian, caryatid, chiastic, dryad, dromedary, effulgent, elixir, fricative, fungible and 145 more...
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AbraxasZugzwang's Words
atavism, abraxas, sisyphean, frust, fetus-in-fetu, arhythmically, queef, epidemiology, abecedarian, troglodyte, chiaroscuro, philology and 631 more...
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artoparts's Words
illation, finite, edify, abide, abrade, vouch, amiss, vociferate, perusing, techantiquery, rigamarole, holon and 615 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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kingrat47's Words
procrustean, devolution, cacophony, hippopotamus, crunch, beware, chortled, sibilant, subtle, undermine, acromegaly, acropolis and 645 more...
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researchgirl's Words
palpable, vade mecum, penumbra, ephemera, esoteric, quirky, quintessential, aphorism, amnesia, insomnia, synesthesia, apostasy and 186 more...
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Brief Interviews With Hideous Men
By David Foster Wallace
emeritus, apian, fenestration, prophylax, pelisse, niggardly, lallating, pica, simulacrum, floridly, acquiesced, truculent and 114 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, P
pellucid, pertain, pampas, prate, pinecone, philistine, pantocrator, papaverine, postmeridian, potlatch, pharology, pinniped and 622 more...
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Splendid Words.
Words that i find splendid and that give me joy to use with frequency.
clerihew, fraudulent, betwixt, correlative, irregular, inchoate, dichotomy, meretricious, antidisestablishm..., hippopotomonstros..., plosive, capitulate and 13 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for plosive.
bilby :-) Try smuggling that on board the aircraft! Dec 14, 2007
sarra polyplosivity! Dec 14, 2007
bilby I wrote a sentence today which read in part:
"to pep up its appearance".
It sounded terrible with its overdose of plosives. Dec 14, 2007