Delabialise

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To modify a speech sound by eliminating or changing its lip-rounding or lip-closure feature
2. To alter a consonant or vowel so that it no longer involves significant lip articulation or rounding
3. To transform a phoneme by removing the labial component that characterizes its articulation

Etymology: "Delabialise" is a technical term from phonetics, the study of speech sounds, and it is built from familiar parts. The prefix "de-" meaning "undo" or "reverse" is attached to "labialise," which comes from Latin "labium," meaning "lip." To labialise a sound is to round the lips while producing it, as in the vowel of "oo." To delabialise is to undo that rounding, spreading or unrounding the lips, as in the vowel of "ee." The verb is a modern coinage made by linguists working in the 19th and 20th centuries, when phonetics developed as a discipline and needed precise vocabulary for describing lip position. It is not an ancient or traditional English word, and its form follows the same pattern as "decentralise" and "defrost," where "de-" reverses an action.

Synonyms: unround, delabialize

Antonyms: labialise, labialize