sibilant
/ˈsɪbɪl(ə)nt
/adjective
1Making or characterized by a hissing sound: his sibilant whisper...
- There were shouts and laughter and sibilant whispers.
- You hear the sibilant whisper of gentle waves washing the shore and you know the sea is calm tonight.
- We all spoke German, too, at the table - except when talking to the waitress, when we settled into sibilant cadences and sharp vowels.
2 Phonetics (Of a speech sound) sounded with a hissing effect, for example s, sh.Though everyone else in the picture speaks in some variation of a British accent, poor Jolie has been given the Transylvanian throat-sucker's throaty, sibilant vowels, as well as a wardrobe of snakes....
- The addition of e before s after sibilant consonants (pass/passes) and final o (go/goes).
- Modern Portuguese is characterized by an abundance of sibilant and palatal consonants and a broad spectrum of vowel sounds (five nasal phonemes and eight to ten oral ones).
noun Phonetics
A sibilant speech sound.He kept separate the constituents of consonantal clusters, relishing sibilants and fricatives as much as plosives and liquids, and studied the duration of pauses as carefully as the duration of syllables....
- Some readers do elocution lessons to get rid of troublesome sibilants or worrisome vowels (try imitating a fish).
- But I love hearing French rapped - all those elisions and sibilants are a dreamy alternative to hard-consonant English spitting.
Derivatives
sibilance
- After about a minute, a single car stopped in front of them, its door hissing open with pneumatic sibilance.
- His speed-speak makes for a high-energy performance, but when compounded with a slight sibilance, it compels the audience to pay close attention to catch what he's saying.
- Floating in glass-topped court-tank of aquamarine. Underwater wave lengths of muffled sibilance, mutated boom.
sibilancy
sibilantly
- He whistles softly, sibilantly, and says ‘Lord, it has a real nice taste to it…’
- Here, even in mid-summer you are likely to have its three floors to yourself, apart from small groups of female attendants whispering sibilantly in corners or working through crosswords.
- One paper described him as ‘a plump piano player who talks sibilantly through his teeth and has a come-hither smile as comforting as a neon light over an undertaker's establishment.’
Origin
Mid 17th century: from Latin sibilant- 'hissing', from the verb sibilare.