Word.ws English Dictionary

Verner's law

Verner's law proper noun: a sound law describing the voicing of voiceless fricatives in early Proto-Germanic, due to placement of the accent on a word.

Proper noun

Verner's law

  1. (Indo-european studies) A sound law describing the voicing of voiceless fricatives in early Proto-Germanic, due to placement of the accent on a word.
    • The discovery of Verner's law provided an explanation for the medial voiced plosive in Old English fæder "father".

Origin of Verner's law

Named after Danish linguist Karl Verner (1846–1896).

Questions about Verner's law

What does Verner's law mean?
Verner's law means a sound law describing the voicing of voiceless fricatives in early Proto-Germanic, due to placement of the accent on a word.
What part of speech is Verner's law?
Verner's law is a proper noun.

Words near Verner's law in the dictionary

  1. Verne
  2. Vernean
  3. Verner
  4. Verner alternation
  5. Verner alternations
  6. Verner's law
  7. Verner-Morrison syndrome
  8. Vernerian
  9. Vernes
  10. verneshot
  11. verneshots

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Verner's law (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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