nasal
adj.adj. related to the nose or the way you breathe through it. It also describes a voice that sounds like the person is speaking through their nose.
adj. relating to the nose or the nasal cavity; in phonetics, describes a sound produced by air escaping through the nose while the mouth is closed.
He has a very nasal voice because of his cold.
The doctor examined her nasal passages to see if allergies were causing the blockage.
Linguists distinguish between oral and nasal vowels, noting that the latter are produced by lowering the soft palate to allow airflow through the nose.
From Middle English, from Medieval Latin nāsālis, from nāsus (“the nose”) + -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix). Doublet of nasalis.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Typically used as an attributive adjective before a noun.
Last updated May 6, 2026