Affricate

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A consonant sound that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, often producing a distinct auditory quality
2. A speech sound characterized by a complete obstruction of airflow followed by a gradual release, resulting in a complex articulation
3. A type of consonant produced by a combination of a plosive and a fricative, creating a unique phonetic effect during pronunciation

Etymology: The sound is named for a verb that means to rub against something. Latin "affricare" was built from "ad", "to", and "fricare", "to rub", so an affricate is a sound that begins as a complete stop, like a "t", and then releases into a friction "rub", like an "s". In Latin, "affricātus" meant rubbed against or rubbed onto, which is why the description of the sound is physical rather than acoustic. English took the term directly from the Latin past participle "affricātus", so the word is a borrowing rather than something inherited through French. Its root "fricāre" goes back to a Proto-Italic base, which is the ancestor of Latin, and the same root gives English "friction". The word shares that family with "friction" but has taken on a purely phonetic meaning in linguistics.

Synonyms: consonant