Word.ws English Dictionary

zetacism

zetacism noun: a sound change converting a consonant into /z/, the voiced alveolar sibilant.

Noun

zetacism (uncountable)

  1. A sound change converting a consonant into /z/, the voiced alveolar sibilant.
    • In the Lettish language, which partakes altogether of a more modern character, the zetacism seizes the dentals, gutterals ^([sic]), sibilants and liquids […]1860, Leonhard Tafel, Latin Pronunciation and the Latin Alphabet, page 161
    • Alternately, it was proposed that the reverse processes of sigmatism (the reverse of lambdacism) and zetacism (the reverse of rhotacism) may more accurately describe the alternations seen.1997, Calgary Working Papers in Linguistics, volumes 19-21, page 63
  2. The lack of a sound change in a language when languages in the same family undergo rhotacism.

Origin of zetacism

From zeta + -cism (phenomenon related to a specific phoneme).

Questions about zetacism

What does zetacism mean?
Zetacism means a sound change converting a consonant into /z/, the voiced alveolar sibilant.
What part of speech is zetacism?
Zetacism is a noun.

Words near zetacism in the dictionary

  1. zeta value
  2. zeta values
  3. Zeta variant
  4. zetabetical
  5. zetabyte
  6. zetacism
  7. zetacist
  8. zetacrit
  9. zetacrits
  10. zetametric
  11. zetametry

Source and license

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