guttural

American  

[guht-er-uhl] / ˈgʌt ər əl /

adjective

1. of or relating to the throat.

2. harsh; throaty.

3. Phonetics.  pertaining to or characterized by a sound articulated in the back of the mouth, as the non-English velar fricative sound

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noun

1. a guttural sound.

guttural British  

/ ˈɡʌtərəl /

adjective

1. anatomy of or relating to the throat

2. phonetics pronounced in the throat or the back of the mouth; velar or uvular

3. raucous

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noun

1. phonetics a guttural consonant

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

Example Sentences

Raspy grunts, high-pitched mews, guttural barks and the occasional roar bellowed toward my group of hikers at Año Nuevo State Park, a remote strip of coastal bluffs about 60 miles south of San Francisco.

From New York Times

Edith let out a guttural cry as she was taken down to the cells.

From BBC

Spoken Arabic changes regionally, with the Berber-infused Arabic of North Africa, the rapid-fire Egyptian heard in movies and television comedies, the soft Levantine drawl and the guttural dialect of the Gulf Arabs.

From Seattle Times

From under the forest canopy came the guttural, trash-compactor roar of the loudest land animal in the world, one of many endangered species that live here, along with pumas, toucans, spider monkeys and coati-mundis.

From New York Times

Low-pitched trills had a guttural quality, and she slashed at the violin so furiously she could have drawn blood from its strings.

From New York Times