Word.ws English Dictionary

phonate

Syllables: pho·nateUK/fəʊˈneɪt//ˈfoʊˌneɪt/

phonate verb: to make sounds with one's voice.

Verb

phonate (third-person singular simple present phonates, present participle phonating, simple past and past participle phonated)

  1. (intransitive) To make sounds with one's voice.
    • His voice is perfect; he phonates loudly and well.1873, John Murray, “On Three Peculiar Cases of Molluscum Fibrosum in Children […]”, in Medico-chirurgical Transactions, volume LVI, London: Published by the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of...
    • [A]s soon, however, as the patient endeavored to produce a higher note by phonating forcibly, the vocal cords were stretched unusually tight, the arytenoid cartilages were pressed spasmodically together, and no tone could be heard.1875 July, George M. Lefferts, “Report on Laryngology. No. II.”, in James B. Hunter, editor, The New York Medical Journal: A Monthly Record of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, volume XXII...
  2. (transitive) To use one's voice to make specific sounds.
    • [T]he tongue may rise up in the mouth, even while the patient phonates the vowel "a" [eh], in which case it will also need to be depressed by the finger, as just described.1876, Bernard Fraenkel, “The General Diagnosis and Therapeutics of Diseases of the Nose, Naso-pharyngeal Space, Pharynx, and Larynx”, in Edward W. Schauffler, transl., edited by H[ugo Wilhelm] von...
    • The third and last difficulty [...] is the drawing up of the velum and uvula tightly against the pharyngeal wall, which occurs as soon as the patient opens the mouth widely, or as soon as your instruments are introduced within it; and when you remember that the position that we wish it to assume...1876 June, George M. Lefferts, “The Modern Methods of Examining the Upper Air Passages”, in E. C. Seguin, editor, A Series of American Clinical Lectures […], volume II, number 6, New York, N.Y....

Adjective

phonate (not comparable)

  1. voiced

phonate meaning in Urdu

phonate in Urdu

صوتی آواز نکلنا

Examples of phonate in a sentence

  • Adult male speakers can phonate at fundamental frequencies that range between 80 and 300 Hz.1975, Philip Lieberman, On the Origins of Language: An Introduction to the Evolution of Human Speech, Lanham, Md.: University Press of...
  • For the pure fun of it, I stuck the hot-wire in my mouth and phonated.1989, H. M. Teager, S. M. Teager, “Evidence for Nonlinear Sound Production Mechanisms in the Vocal Tract”, in William J. Hardcastle, Alain...
  • Isshiki found that if a singer is asked to phonate Ee, Oo, and Ah at the same loudness he will actually make the Ah much louder than the other two.1967, William Vennard, Singing: The Mechanism and the Technic, 5th edition, New York, N.Y.: Carl Fischer, →ISBN, paragraph 444, page 124:
  • [S]uch consonants are pronounced el, em, and en in English; while similar consonants are phonated la, ma, na in Filipino.2005, Angel S. Recto, “Language and Writing”, in Foundations of Education: (Anthropological, Psychological, Sociological, and Moral)...

Antonyms of phonate

Forms of phonate

third-person singular presentphonates
present participlephonating
past participlephonated
pastphonated

Origin of phonate

From Ancient Greek φωνή (phōnḗ, “voice, sound”) + -ate (verb-forming suffix), modelled after phonation, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to say, speak”).

From Ancient Greek φωνή (phōnḗ, “voice, sound”) + -ate (adjective-forming suffix, with perfect meaning).

Questions about phonate

What does phonate mean?
Phonate means to make sounds with one's voice.
What is phonate in Urdu?
Phonate in Urdu is صوتی آواز نکلنا. See Phonate meaning in Urdu.
How do you use phonate in a sentence?
Adult male speakers can phonate at fundamental frequencies that range between 80 and 300 Hz.
What part of speech is phonate?
Phonate can be a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce phonate?
Phonate is pronounced /fəʊˈneɪt/ (UK).
What is the past tense of phonate?
The past tense of phonate is phonated.

Words near phonate in the dictionary

  1. phonaesthetically
  2. phonaesthetics
  3. phonagnosia
  4. phonal
  5. phonascetics
  6. phonate
  7. phonated
  8. phonates
  9. phonating
  10. phonation
  11. phonational

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: phonate (page history and authors); phonate (Urdu Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-phonate.oga, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Commander Keane-phonate.wav.

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