| 释义 |
▪ I. consonant, a.|ˈkɒnsənənt|
Also 7–8 -ent.
[a. 14th c. F. consonant (now consonnant, after sonner), ad. L. consonānt-em, pr. pple. (also used as adj.) of consonāre to sound together, be harmonious, f. con- together + sonāre to sound.]
1. In agreement, accordance, or harmony; agreeable, accordant (to); agreeing, consistent (with).
1489Caxton Faytes of A. iv. xi. 260 Thy raysons ben consonaunte. 1550Bale Apol. 55 (R.) A confourme and consonant ordre. 1563Homilies ii. Rebellion i. (1859) 561 With one consonant heart and voice. 1611Speed Hist. Gt. Brit. vi. x. 83 This life and death nothing at al consonant or agreeable.
b. Const. to, unto (an accepted standard).
1491Caxton Vitas Patr. i. lxi. (W. de W. 1495) 113 a/2 The deuyll seenge that his contrycyon was not consonaunt to his wordes. 1535Act 27 Hen. VIII, c. 26 §1 A speche nothing like ne consonant to the natural mother tonge vsed within this realme. 1628Coke On Litt. Pref., The opinion is consonant to law. 1664H. More Myst. Iniq., Apol. 500 Divine Truth will be found every-where consonant to itself. 1709Hearne Collect. II. 327 The Doctrine of them is certainly consonant to our articles and Homilies. 1865Grote Plato I. iv. 146 This seems more consonant to the language of Diogenes Laertius.
c. Const. with.
c1555Harpsfield Divorce Hen. VIII (1878) 236 If the marriage..were not consonant with the laws. 1597Hooker Eccl. Pol. v. lxvii. §12 That wherewith the writings of all antiquity are consonant. 1678Marvell Growth Popery Wks. I. 574 Like the harmony of the spheres, so consonant with themselves, although we cannot hear the musick. 1749Fielding Tom Jones (1775) 25 She..first sounded their inclinations, with which her sentiments were always strictly consonant. 1857Gladstone Gleanings VI. xli. 73 It is entirely consonant with the doctrine of St. Paul. 1861Tulloch Eng. Purit. iii. 377 It will be more..consonant with our aim to endeavour to characterise, etc.
†d. advb. Obs.
1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 180/3 The chylde..gaue his cryes consonaunte unto his moder. 1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. 251 Full of yeares..according to the Etymology of Festus, and consonant unto the History. 1744Harris Three Treat. iii. ii. (1765) 197 Hear him, consonant to this, in another Place asserting.
†2. ? Agreeable to reason or circumstances; suitable. Obs.
1491Act 7 Hen. VII, c. 12 Preamb., His Highnes semeth most convenient and consonaunt to preserve the possessions of the Crown..without any severaunce. 1613R. C. Table Alph. (ed. 3), Consonant, agreeable, likely.
†3. In agreement with itself, consistent. Obs.
a1556Cranmer Wks. I. 19 She sheweth herself alway uniform and consonant. a1600Hooker Answ. To Travers Wks. II. 693 The true consonant meaning of sentences not understood is brought to light. 1655Digges Compl. Ambass. 392 It might have pleased her Majestie to have kept a consonant course there. 1744Harris Three Treat. Wks. (1841) 81 To live agreeably to some one single and consonant scheme or purpose.
4. Of sounds or music: Harmonious.
1515Barclay Egloges (1570) C iv/2 It..is to one pleasaunt To heare good reason and ballade consonant. c1800K. White Rem. (1837) 386 An euphonious melody and consonent cadence. 1871Swinburne Songs bef. Sunrise, To W. Whitman 19 With consonant ardors of chords That pierce men's souls as with swords.
b. Mus. Concordant; constituting a concord or consonance.
1609Dowland Ornith. Microl. 78 Out of the mean inequalitie..doe proceed consonant Sounds. 1760Stiles Anc. Grk. Music in Phil. Trans. LI. 705 A consonant system..whose extreme or comprehending sounds were consonant. 1860J. Goss Harmony iv. 9 A Chord..is named a Concord when all the notes form consonant intervals to each other. Ibid., The consonant intervals, or Consonances, are the major and minor 3d, perfect 4th and 5th, major and minor 6th, perfect 8ve, and unison. 1884Bosanquet in Encycl. Brit. XVII. 106/1 (Music), Other consonant intervals.
5. Of words, etc.: Agreeing or alike in sound.
c1645Howell Lett. (1650) I. 60 Our bards..hold agnominations, and enforcing of consonant words or syllables one upon the other, to be the greatest elegance. 1882Palgrave in Spenser's Wks. (ed. Grosart) IV. p. lvii, Spenser manages the four consonant rhymes required in each stanza with wonderful ease.
†6. Of the nature of a consonant. Obs. rare.
1751Harris Hermes Wks. (1841) 210 The articulations so produced are called consonant, because they sound not of themselves..but at all times in company with some auxiliary vowel.
▪ II. consonant, n.|ˈkɒnsənənt|
[a. 13–14th c. F. consonant (pl. -ans), ad. L. consonānt-em, n. use (sc. consonans littera) of pr. pple.: see prec. Lat. had also in same sense consona (sc. littera), whence mod.F. consonne.]
1. An alphabetic or phonetic element other than a vowel; an elementary sound of speech which in the formation of a syllable is combined with a vowel. Applied both to the sounds and to the letters (the latter being the historically prior use).
While a vowel sound is formed in the larynx, and only receives its special quality by the conformation of the oral cavity through which it is sounded, a consonant sound is wholly or mainly produced in the mouth, or the mouth and nose. Vowels thus consist of pure voice or musical sound; consonants are either simple noises or noises combined in various degrees with voice. But a noise may itself be of a continuous and rhythmical character, as a friction, trill, hiss, or buzz, and those consonants in which this is markedly the case approach closely to vowels, and may perform the function of a vowel in a syllable. Hence ‘the boundary between vowel and consonant, like that between the different kingdoms of nature, cannot be drawn with absolute definiteness, and there are sounds which may belong to either’ (Sweet Handbk. Phonetics §164). And there is in the consonants a regular gradation from those which come nearest to vowels and may function as vowels, to those which are most remote, and never so function. From this point of view, elementary sounds have been classed as (1) vowels, (2) semi-vowels (Eng. j and w), (3) liquids |l, ʎ, r|, (4) nasals |m, n, ɲ, ŋ|, (5) fricatives or spirants, voice |v, ð, z, ʒ, ɣ|, and breath |f, θ, s, ʃ, x|, (6) mutes or stops, voice |b, d, g|, and breath |p, t, k|. Class 2 are more strictly the vowels i, u, functioning as consonants, and classed as consonants; classes 3, 4, 5, are capable, in a decreasing measure, of functioning as vowels; only class 6 have the consonantal function exclusively, p, t, k, being the most typical consonants. The use of the liquids and nasals as vowels or sonants is a prominent feature in Indogermanic Phonology. (See vowel.) Consonants may also be classed, according to the part of the mouth where they are formed, into labials (p, b, f, v, m, w), dentals, palatals, gutturals, and other minor groups. (See these terms.) In the Roman alphabet (with its Greek accessions), the historical vowels are a, e, i, o, u, y; down to the 16–17th c., i and u were used both as vowels and consonants, a double function served by y and w in various modern languages.
a. Applied to the letters (solely or chiefly).
c1308Sat. People Kildare 18 in E.E.P. (1862) 153 Þis uers is imakid wel Of consonans and wowel. 1530Palsgr. Introd. 20 Consonantes written for kepying of trewe orthographie, and levyng of them unsounded in pronunciation. 1589Puttenham Eng. Poesie ii. (Arb.) 128 To prolong the sillable which is written with double consonants. c1620A. Hume Brit. Tongue (1865) 11 A consonant is a letter symbolizing a sound articulat that is broaken with the tuiches of the mouth. 1727W. Mather Yng. Man's Comp. 10 The two Consonants that may begin Words, are Thirty in Number..As in Bl, Br, Ch..Gn, Gr, Kn..Th, Tw, Wh, Wr. 1823Sir B. Brodie Crystallog. 103 The vowels A E I O, are used to designate the solid angles; some of the consonants, B C D F G H, to designate the primary edges. 1867A. J. Ellis E.E. Pronunc. i. iii. 184 According to the present usages of English speech Y and W are consonants when preceding a vowel as in ye, woe. 1871Pitman Manual Phonogr. 46 The consonants of a word must be written [in shorthand] without lifting the pen.
b. Applied to the sounds.
1603H. Crosse Vertues Commw. (1878) 4, I have scattered here and there some iarring notes and harsh consonants, vntunable to a modest eare. 1751Johnson Rambler No. 88 ⁋5 The difference of harmony arising principally from the collocation of vowels and consonants. 1871Roby Lat. Gram. I. §1 Interruption [of the breath] by complete contact, or compression by approximation of certain parts of the organs, or vibration of the tongue or uvula, produces consonants. 1877Sweet Handbk. Phonetics §99 A consonant is the result of audible friction, squeezing or stopping of the breath in some part of the mouth (or occasionally of the throat)..Consonants can..be breathed as well as voiced, the mouth configuration alone being enough to produce a distinct sound without the help of voice.
†c. humorously, with allusion to the etymological sense ‘sounding together’. Obs.
1607T. Walkington Opt. Glass Pref., Like the foole, a Consonant when hee should be a Mute.
†2. Agreement, accordance; = consonance 5.
c1400Apol. Loll. 9 Þis consonaunt is vnknowen to þe japer. 1618M. Baret Horsemanship i. 18 Ioyne two parrallel lines together, they make a true consonant.
†3.
a. Musical harmony or agreement of sounds.
1483Caxton Gold. Leg. 38/4 Iubal..was the fynder of musyke that is to saye of consonantes of acorde.
†b. Mus. = consonance 3 b. Obs.
1694W. Holder Harmony (1731) 113 As we Naturally by the Judgment of our Ear, own, and rest in the Octave, as the chief Consonant. 1712Steele Spect. No. 334 ⁋4 Those Numbers which produc'd Sounds that were Consonants.
4. attrib. and Comb. (in sense 1), as consonant-cluster, consonant diphthong, consonant-dropping, consonant-group; etc. consonant shift Philology, a change in consonantal sounds, spec. that which took place (1) in the development of the Germanic languages, as set forth in the formula known as Grimm's Law, (2) in the later development of High German from Common West Germanic.
1933Bloomfield Language xxi. 370 A phonetic change which consisted of shortening long vowels before certain *consonant-clusters. 1953C. E. Bazell Linguistic Form 48 When initial and final consonant-clusters show more limitations in common than either with medial clusters, the relation of juncture may be described as dominant.
1862M. Hopkins Hawaii 65 The Hawaiian alphabet..is so destitute of *consonant diphthongs that the natives cannot pronounce two consonants together. 1889Pitman Manual Phonogr. §64 The simple articulations p, b, t, d, etc., are often closely united with the liquids l and r, forming a kind of consonant diphthong.
1888Sweet Hist. Eng. Sounds (ed. 2) 27 Many..*consonant-droppings are no doubt due to the..principle of economy in distinction.
1888Ibid. 169 Long vowels are regularly shortened in ME before two conss., except..before those *cons.-groups which lengthen short vowels. 1924A. Mawer Chief Elements Eng. Place-Names 6 Blæc, OE, ‘black’, are often very difficult to distinguish owing to the shortening of vowel which the former may undergo in a compound before a consonant-group. 1965W. S. Allen Vox Latina iii. 68 Complex consonant groups.
1888Sweet Hist. Eng. Sounds (ed. 2) 93 The second, or High German, *consonant-shift. 1905Jespersen Growth Eng. Lang. 23 The consonant-shift is important to the modern philologist. 1934S. Robertson Devel. Mod. Eng. (1936) ii. 31 Later philologists than Grimm found it necessary to qualify and modify his statement of the consonant-shift.
1888Sweet Hist. Eng. Sounds (ed. 2) 27 *Consonant-smoothing is analogous to that of vowels. |