| 释义 |
spirant, n. and a.|ˈspaɪərənt|
[a. L. spīrant-, spīrans, pres. pple. of spīrāre to breathe. So F. spirant, It. spirante, Sp. and Pg. espirante.]
a. n. A consonant which admits of a continued emission of some amount of breath, so that the sound is capable of being prolonged.
b. adj. Pronounced with an accompanying emission of breath.
1862W. D. Whitney in Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. VII. vii. 319 The labial series has no sibilants; for its pair of fricatives, surd and sonant..so lack the hissing quality which distinguishes the..sibilants, that it seems preferable to put them in another class; which..we will call the spirants. 1866Whitney in Jrnl. Amer. Oriental Soc. VIII. 348 If..any one of them..has passed over into a spirant, it can never recover an explosive character. 1882–3Schaff Encycl. Relig. Knowl. III. 2155 The Semitic alphabet is..characterized by fulness of guttural, uvular, and spirant consonants. 1894Lindsay Latin Lang. 51 The change from the bilabial to the labiodental spirant.
Hence spiˈrantic a.
1896Classical Rev. X. 59 In support of the spirantic theory, we have the difference of phonetic law in Sanskrit and Greek. 1896Academy 21 Mar. 243/1 The author might safely have claimed the spirantic pronunciation as existent in Athens in the fourth century b.c. |