formant
[ fawr-muh nt ]
/ ˈfɔr mənt /
|
noun
Music. the range and number of partials present in a tone of a specific instrument, representing its timbre.
Acoustic Phonetics. one of the regions of concentration of energy, prominent on a sound spectrogram, that collectively constitute the frequency spectrum of a speech sound. The relative positioning of the first and second formants, whether periodic or aperiodic, as of the o of hope at approximately 500 and 900 cycles per second, is usually sufficient to distinguish a sound from all others.
Nearby words
- formalize,
- formally,
- formalwear,
- formamidase,
- forman,
- format,
- formate,
- formatio,
- formation,
- formation dance
Origin of formant
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019
Examples from the Web for formant
L'attaque fut formée en colonnes par échelons de régiment, Bachelu formant les échelons les plus avancés.
The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2)|John Holland Rose"See the pretty Formant looking quite common next to her," said the first.
The Red and the Black|Stendhal
formant
/ (ˈfɔːmənt) /
noun
acoustics phonetics any of several frequency ranges within which the partials of a sound, esp a vowel sound, are at their strongest, thus imparting to the sound its own special quality, tone colour, or timbre
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
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