fortition

Noun

fortition (countable and uncountable, plural fortitions)

1. A sound change in which a consonant becomes more fortis.
   • The two process types following from these assumptions, lenition processes, aiming at articulatory ease at the expense of perception, and fortition processes, resulting in articulatory difficulty in favor of better perception, were further modified by Dressler & Drachman (1977), as lenitions need...1988, Sylvia Moosmüller, Sociophonology, Peter Auer, Aldo di Luzio (editors), Variation and Convergence: Studies in Social Dialectology, page 76
   • In order to distinguish between the two kinds of voiceless final stops the terms 'final devoicing' and 'fortition after sonorants' are used here. Although fortition after sonorants is quite well attested for present-day contact English and in general Irish English, the significance of fent, spent...2007, Raymond Hickey, Irish English: History and Present-Day Forms, page 62

   Antonyms:

   lenition

2. (obsolete) Casual choice; fortuitous selection; hazard.
   • No rotation; no appointment by lot; no mode of election operating in the spirit of fortition or rotation, can be generally good in a government conversant in extensive objects.1790, Edmund Burke, “Relections on the Revolution in France”, in Thomas Haviland Burke, editor, Opinions on Reform, published 1831, page 17