Word.ws English Dictionary

retracted tongue root

retracted tongue root noun: an articulation involving retraction of the tongue root.

Noun

retracted tongue root (plural retracted tongue roots)

  1. (attributive, often) An articulation involving retraction of the tongue root.
    • The high back retracted tongue root vowel is always further back than its counterpart, rather than further forward, as is the case for the traditional lax back vowels.1996, Peter Ladefoged, Ian Maddieson, The Sounds of the World's Languages
    • /ʕ/ is typically realized as an epiglottal stop, gliding as a pharyngeal approximant into a following retracted-tongue-root vowel, as in [ʡˤʊ̙maː] ‘water flowing from a spout’.2001, Barry F. Carlson, John H. Esling, Katie Fraser, “Nuuchahnulth”, in Journal of the International Phonetic Association, volume 31, number 2

Forms of retracted tongue root

pluralretracted tongue roots

Questions about retracted tongue root

What does retracted tongue root mean?
Retracted tongue root means an articulation involving retraction of the tongue root.
What part of speech is retracted tongue root?
Retracted tongue root is a noun.
What is the plural of retracted tongue root?
The plural of retracted tongue root is retracted tongue roots.

Words near retracted tongue root in the dictionary

  1. retractates
  2. retractating
  3. retractation
  4. retractations
  5. retracted
  6. retracted tongue root
  7. retracted tongue roots
  8. retracter
  9. retracters
  10. retractest
  11. retracteth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: retracted tongue root (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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