gheada
/heɪˈɑːdə/
gheada noun: the lenition of the voiced velar stop in the Galician language.
Noun
gheada (uncountable)
- the lenition of the voiced velar stop in the Galician language.
- This variety is a non-standard phonological register characterized by gheada [heáða], that is, the fricativization and devoicing of the voiced velar stop: /ɡ/ -> [ɣ] (other variants are [x], [h]; for a review of the phenomenon see for example Alvarez Cáccamo 1989b:261-65).1990, Berkeley Linguistics Society, Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley Linguistics Society, v.16, page 6
- In contrast to the phenomena of open and close vowels, the presence or absence of the gheada is still one of the most prominent phonetic features of present-day Galician.2007, Jaine Beswick, Regional Nationalism in Spain: Language Use and Ethnic Identity in Galicia, Multilingual Matters, page 141
Origin of gheada
From Galician gheada.
Questions about gheada
- What does gheada mean?
- Gheada means the lenition of the voiced velar stop in the Galician language.
- What part of speech is gheada?
- Gheada is a noun.
- How do you pronounce gheada?
- Gheada is pronounced /heɪˈɑːdə/.
Words near gheada in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gheada (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “gheada.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gheada. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.