a voiced sound that is less sonorous than a vowel but more sonorous than a stop or fricative and that may occur as either a sonant or a consonant, as (l, r, m, n, y, w).
a speech sound characterized by relatively free air passage through some channel, as a vowel, semivowel, liquid, or nasal.Compare obstruent.
adjective
of, relating to, or having the properties of a sonorant.
Origin of sonorant
< Latinsonōr- (stem of sonor) sound, noise + -ant; see sonorous
one of the frictionless continuants or nasals (l, r, m, n, ŋ) having consonantal or vocalic functions depending on its situation within the syllable
either of the two consonants represented in English orthography by w or y and regarded as either consonantal or vocalic articulations of the vowels iː and uː
