Word.ws English Dictionary

guttural

UK/ˈɡʌtəɹəl//ˈɡʌtəɹəl/

guttural adjective: of, relating to, or connected to the throat.

Adjective

guttural (comparative more guttural, superlative most guttural)

  1. Of, relating to, or connected to the throat.
    • guttural duct of the ear; guttural pouch infection
  2. Having a place of articulation towards the back of the mouth; in modern use, uvular, pharyngeal, or glottal; in earlier or non-technical use, also including velar.
  3. Sounding harsh and throaty.
    • Arabic is considered a very guttural language, with many harsh consonants.
    • The departure was not unduly prolonged.[…]Within the door Mrs. Spoker hastily imparted to Mrs. Love a few final sentiments on the subject of Divine Intention in the disposition of buckets; farewells and last commiserations; a deep, guttural instigation to the horse; and the wheels of the waggonette...1921, Ben Travers, chapter 5, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC

Noun

guttural (plural gutturals)

  1. A harsh and throaty spoken sound
    • He was hairy, and his speech of rough gutturals was imperfect.1899, Stanley Waterloo, The Wolf's Long Howl
    • He seems quite an exception to some husbands in that respect!" remarked the Berliner in deep gutturals.1912, Frederic Stewart Isham, A Man and His Money

guttural meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

guttural in Tamil

தொண்டையில் ஒலிக்கின்ற

guttural in Urdu

حلق سے نکلنے والا, حلقی

guttural in Bengali

guttural , খ , গ , ঘ , ঙ and হ
কণ্ঠ্য konṭṭho

guttural in Malayalam

husky, throaty, gruff
കണ്ഠ്യ, കണ്ഠസ്ഥാനീയ, കണ്ഠവ്യം, ചിലമ്പിയ, കർക്കശശബ്ദത്തോടുകൂടിയ, ഇടറിയ ശബ്ദത്തോടുകൂടിയ
More languagesFewer languages
guttural in Kannada
ಗಂಟಲಿನ
guttural in Sanskrit
कण्ठ्य kaṇṭhya
guttural in Assamese
কণ্ঠ্য konthyo

Examples of guttural in a sentence

  • In some Semitic languages such as Akkadian, some or all gutturals are weak and often disappear, but in others such as Arabic and Ugaritic, they are strong and never disappear.
  • Instead, the speaker tries to fill the silence with unintelligible guttural sounds or meaningless words.
  • That is if English words still have any distinct meaning apart from urban ebonified guttural grunting.

All 19 example sentences with guttural

Forms of guttural

Adjective
comparativemore guttural
superlativemost guttural
Noun
pluralgutturals

Origin of guttural

From Middle French guttural, from New Latin gutturālis, from Latin guttur (“throat”) + -ālis.

Words formed from guttural

Questions about guttural

What does guttural mean?
Guttural means of, relating to, or connected to the throat.
What is guttural in Tamil?
Guttural in Tamil is தொண்டையில் ஒலிக்கின்ற. See Guttural meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is guttural?
Guttural can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce guttural?
Guttural is pronounced /ˈɡʌtəɹəl/ (UK).

Words near guttural in the dictionary

  1. guttulae
  2. guttulate
  3. guttule
  4. guttules
  5. guttulous
  6. guttural
  7. guttural toad
  8. gutturalisation
  9. gutturalise
  10. gutturalised
  11. gutturalises

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: guttural (page history and authors); guttural (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); guttural (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); কণ্ঠ্য (Bengali) (page history and authors); guttural (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); guttural (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); কণ্ঠ্য (Assamese) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-guttural.ogg.

Cite this entry: “guttural.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/guttural. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.