consonant
n. countablen. a speech sound made by partly or completely blocking the air as it leaves your mouth. Letters like B, T, and S represent these sounds.
n. a speech sound produced by a partial or complete closure of the vocal tract. Contrasted with vowels, which are produced with an open vocal tract.
The word 'cat' starts and ends with a consonant.
English learners often find it difficult to pronounce clusters of three or more consonants in a row.
Phonetic analysis reveals that the speaker tends to soften terminal consonants, a characteristic common to several regional dialects in the southern part of the country.
From Middle English consonant or consonaunt, from Old French consonant, from Latin cōnsonāns (“sounding with”), from the prefix con- (“with”) + the present participle sonāns (“sounding”), from sonāre (“to sound”). The Latin is a calque of Ancient Greek σύμφωνον (súmphōnon).
Commonly contrasted with 'vowel' in linguistic and educational contexts.
an consonanta consonantUse the article 'a' before words starting with a consonant sound, even when the word itself is 'consonant'.