devocalize

English

Etymology

de- +‎ vocalize

Verb

devocalize (third-person singular simple present devocalizes, present participle devocalizing, simple past and past participle devocalized)

  1. (transitive) To make toneless; to deprive of vowel quality.
    • H. Sweet
      If we take a high vowel […] and devocalize it, we obtain a hiss […]
  2. (transitive) To reduce the volume of the vocalizations of (an animal) by surgically removing tissue from its vocal cords.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for devocalize in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.