An article published in Harvard Men’s Health Watch in 2012 shows heavy coffee drinkers live longer. The researchers examined data from 400,000 people and found out that men who drank six or more coffee cups per day had a 10% lower death rate.
SPIRANT
fricative, continuant, sibilant, spirant, strident
(adjective) of speech sounds produced by forcing air through a constricted passage (as ‘f’, ‘s’, ‘z’, or ‘th’ in both ‘thin’ and ‘then’)
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Noun
spirant (plural spirants)
(linguistics, dated) A fricative.
Synonyms
• fricative
Anagrams
• Partins, intraps, spraint
Source: Wiktionary
Spi"rant, n. Etym: [L. spirans, -antis, p. pr. of spirare to breathe. See Spirit.] (Phon.)
Definition: A term used differently by different authorities; -- by some as equivalent to fricative, -- that is, as including all the continuous consonants, except the nasals m, n, ng; with the further exception, by others, of the liquids r, l, and the semivowels w, y; by others limited to f, v, th surd and sonant, and the sound of German ch, -- thus excluding the sibilants, as well as the nasals, liquids, and semivowels. See Guide to Pronunciation, §§ 197-208.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
Word of the Day
4 April 2025
GUILLOTINE
(verb) kill by cutting the head off with a guillotine; “The French guillotined many Vietnamese while they occupied the country”
Coffee Trivia
