formant
Americannoun
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Music. the range and number of partials present in a tone of a specific instrument, representing its timbre.
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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.
noun
Etymology
Origin of formant
1900–05; < Latin formant- (stem of formāns ), present participle of formāre to form; see -ant
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.
Since there were no preferences for recordings derived from any particular male, the researchers could be sure that the females’ approach behaviors were driven exclusively by formant frequencies, rather than any other possible acoustic variable.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 6, 2012
Last, the researchers discovered that the bulls with high mating success had lower formant frequencies than would have been predicted by their body mass alone.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 6, 2012
Given the widespread association of formant frequency with mating success in both placental mammals as well as marsupials, it is possible that these preferences emerged quite early in the evolution of the mammalian clade.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 6, 2012
Taken together, both the bison and koala experiments suggest that variation in formant frequencies may have initially evolved through sexual selection in order to convey information about body size.
From Scientific American ● Dec. 6, 2012
Acrostiches formant le nom de Giles du Wes, 893, 1017.
From An Introductorie for to Lerne to Read, To Pronounce, and to Speke French Trewly by Giles Du Wés
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.
