Word.ws English Dictionary

lene

/ˈliːn/

lene noun: the smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).

Noun

lene (plural lenes)

  1. The smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).
  2. A voiceless, or unaspirated, stopped consonant, such as Greek pi, kappa, or tau.
    • When in a crasis, a lene consonant […] is combined with an aspirated vowel, the lene is always changed (except in the Ionic dialect) into the corresponding aspirate […]1861, William Edward Jelf, Accidence

Forms of lene

plurallenes

Origin of lene

Anglicisation of Latin lēnis. Doublet of lenis.

Words formed from lene

Questions about lene

What does lene mean?
Lene means the smooth breathing (spiritus lenis).
What part of speech is lene?
Lene is a noun.
How do you pronounce lene?
Lene is pronounced /ˈliːn/.
What is the plural of lene?
The plural of lene is lenes.

Words near lene in the dictionary

  1. lends
  2. lends a hand
  3. lends an ear
  4. lends itself to
  5. Lendu
  6. lene
  7. Leneghan
  8. Leneghans
  9. Lenehan
  10. Lenehans
  11. lenes

Source and license

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