guttural
Americanadjective
-
of or relating to the throat.
-
harsh; throaty.
-
Phonetics. pertaining to or characterized by a sound articulated in the back of the mouth, as the non-English velar fricative sound
noun
adjective
-
anatomy of or relating to the throat
-
phonetics pronounced in the throat or the back of the mouth; velar or uvular
-
raucous
noun
Other Word Forms
- gutturalism noun
- gutturality noun
- gutturally adverb
- gutturalness noun
- nonguttural adjective
- nongutturally adverb
- nongutturalness noun
- unguttural adjective
- ungutturally adverb
- ungutturalness noun
Etymology
Origin of guttural
1585–95; < New Latin gutturālis of the throat, equivalent to Latin guttur gullet, throat + -ālis -al 1
Explanation
Guttural describes a hoarse sound made in the back of the throat. Your friend's voice might get low and guttural just before he bursts into tears. Growls and cries are often described as guttural. The Latin word guttur, "throat or gullet," is the root of guttural. That's why sounds that are deep and croaked as if they come from the back of your throat are guttural. In linguistics, speech sounds that start in the throat, like the consonants k and g, are called guttural consonants, and there are even guttural languages which contain many guttural sounds.
Vocabulary lists containing guttural
The Devil's Arithmetic
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The Girl Who Drank the Moon
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Twelve Years a Slave
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"It was the guttural voices of the keeners, there's only three recordings and all three are just so poignant and they're so different," she said.
From BBC • Dec. 31, 2025
Zhao has been signaling this moment from the start of the film, and when Hamnet’s bright, earnest voice is replaced by Buckley’s full-bodied, guttural wail, it’s nearly impossible to stay stone-faced.
From Salon • Nov. 30, 2025
In postproduction, Del Toro sometimes underlay Elordi’s screams with his own guttural noises or the roars of lions and gorillas, imagining a voice created by mismatched lungs and a throat from different people.
From The Wall Street Journal • Sep. 30, 2025
Again, the two complied, but they missed a beat and now they were saying “Daddy, O” in a guttural way as they continued holding hands and squatting up and down.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 13, 2025
He finishes out his tune with a low, guttural hum just as the deep, pounding bass of a revved car engine overrides his voice.
From "American Street" by Ibi Zoboi
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
