obstruent
/ˈɑbstruənt/
noun
- A speech sound made by blocking the airflow in the vocal tract, such as a stop, fricative, or affricate.
- The teacher explained that obstruents contrast with sonorants like vowels and nasals.
- Many languages have more obstruents than sonorants in their consonant systems.
- In phonetics class, we learned that /p/ and /s/ are obstruents.
Antonyms
adjective
- Relating to or being a speech sound that blocks airflow.
- The phonetic chart shows all obstruent phonemes in the International Phonetic Alphabet.
- She studied the obstruent consonants in the Spanish language.
- The obstruent sounds in English include stops like /t/ and fricatives like /f/.