Consonant

How to spell consonant

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce consonant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does consonant mean?

1. nounA speech sound, or the letter representing it, made by partly or fully blocking the breath, as opposed to a vowel.
2. adjectiveIn agreement or harmony with something; consistent.

Consonant in a sentence

• noun

  The word "strength" begins with a cluster of more than one consonant.

• adjective

  The new policy is fully consonant with the firm's stated values.

• noun

  Young readers learn to pair each vowel with a consonant to build a syllable.

• adjective

  Her calm decisions were consonant with the careful planning she had described.

Where does consonant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin consonans, the present participle of consonare, which meant 'to sound together' or 'to sound in harmony'. That verb was built from con- meaning 'with' or 'together' and sonare meaning 'to sound', the same root that gives us 'sound', 'sonic', and 'resonate'. Roman grammarians used consonans to describe a speech sound that could not be sounded on its own but only alongside a vowel, literally a letter that 'sounds with' another. English took the word in during the 1300s, by way of Old French, keeping both the grammatical meaning and a more general sense of things being in agreement or harmony. The spelling trap lives in the middle and end: two unstressed schwa vowels (con-suh-nuhnt) tempt writers toward an extra 'e' or a wrong vowel, but remembering 'con' plus 'son' (the sound) plus '-ant' keeps it steady.

How the word is built

• con- (with, together)
• son (from Latin sonare: to sound)
• -ant (noun/adjective suffix)