voiceless
/ˈvɔɪsləs
/adjective
1Not able to speak or express opinions: millions of Americans feel voiceless and powerless to bring positive change to the political system...
- He was born disabled and voiceless with a gaze permanently haunted by a look of terror.
- An operation for goitre has left her voiceless.
- Hardly any other Arab or Muslim characters appear, with the exception of extras playing voiceless villagers or servants.
1.1Not expressed: the air was charged with voiceless currents of thought...
- Without asking, I understood the call she meant, the voiceless pull that kept drawing me to the water unafraid despite my father's fears.
2 Phonetics (Of a speech sound) uttered without resonance of the vocal cords (e.g. f, k, p, s, t).Neither Mandarin Chinese nor Tibetan distinguishes phonologically between voiced and voiceless obstruent initials, unlike Dzongkha and, for example, English....
- In English, /h/ is like a voiceless vowel in that there is no fricative-like narrowing in the mouth, so that the greatest point of narrowing is in the glottis.
- More generally, voiceless obstruents are more frequent in onset position than voiced obstruents.
Derivatives
voicelessly
- And throughout all of this, Morgan, her Signature Officer, stood on the other side of the doorway, mouthing the phrase to her voicelessly over and over again.
- Earning my wages equates to obeying voicelessly, orders and commands hurled at me by a whole range of big - bellied higher ups.
voicelessness
- Often the breeding ground is that of exclusion, of oppression, of poverty - a sense of voicelessness in the councils of the world and hopelessness for the future, fanned and exploited by the wilful misuse of religious faith and fervour.
- Like many foreign supporters of Cuban socialism who visit Cuba today, he recognizes the frustration that many Cubans feel over their voicelessness in a system that seems to respond to its people less and less.
- Still, I was bothered by the voicelessness that I was experiencing.