Voicing

How to spell voicing

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce voicing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does voicing mean?

1. nounThe act of expressing an opinion, concern, or feeling in words.
2. nounIn speech, the vibration of the vocal cords that distinguishes sounds such as 'z' from 's'.
3. nounThe way the individual notes of a chord are arranged and spaced across instruments or registers.

Voicing in a sentence

• The voicing of staff concerns at the meeting led to real changes in policy.

• The lecturer explained how voicing separates the buzzing 'z' from the hissing 's'.

• The pianist chose a richer voicing that spread the chord across both hands.

• Her public voicing of support reassured the worried customers.

• Students felt their throats to detect the voicing behind each consonant.

• A careful voicing kept the brass and strings from clashing in the same register.

Where does voicing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from voice, which English took from the Old French vois (later voix) in the 1200s, itself descended from the Latin vox, meaning literally 'voice' or 'sound made by the mouth'. The same Latin vox lies behind a whole family of relatives such as 'vocal', 'vocation', and 'advocate', all carrying the idea of calling out or speaking. By adding the native English suffix -ing, the verb voice (to express in spoken words) becomes the noun voicing, naming the act or process itself. The general sense of putting feelings into words is the oldest in everyday use, while technical senses in phonetics and music developed later as specialists needed a precise label for vibrating vocal cords or for arranging the notes of a chord. The spelling stays regular: keep the silent e of 'voice' before the consonant of -ing, so it is voicing, not 'voiceing'.

How the word is built

• voice (from Latin vox: voice)
• -ing (gerund/noun suffix)