Lenites

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Weakens a consonant sound by a phonetic change, such as making a hard stop into a softer fricative or voiced sound
2. Undergoes a sound change in which a consonant becomes softer, as in Irish grammatical mutation of initial letters
3. Softens a speech sound in a process that makes a consonant less forceful or less fully closed in pronunciation

Etymology: "Lenites" is the third-person singular present form of "lenite", a verb meaning to soften a speech sound, as when a consonant is weakened in pronunciation. The verb itself is a back-formation: it was created by stripping the ending off the noun "lenition" and treating what remained as a new verb. Because "lenition" is the older and more basic word, the verb is in effect a derived form built on it. The noun "lenition" is rooted in the Latin adjective "lenis", meaning soft, smooth or gentle, which is also the source of the English adjective "lenient". That shared root is why a sound that is weakened and a person who is gentle in their judgement can be linked by the same ancestor. In linguistics, "lenition" names the process by which a consonant becomes softer, for instance a stop turning into a fricative, and the verb "lenite" describes a sound undergoing that change.

Synonyms: soften, weaken

Antonyms: harden, strengthen