Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To pronounce with a hissing sound; make sibilant.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To render sibilant, as a sound; change into a sibilant or hissing sound; alter, as a sound, by the phonetic process called assibilation.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To make sibilant; to change to a sibilant.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb linguistics, phonetics To change into or pronounce with the accompaniment of a sibilant sound or sounds.
  • verb linguistics, phonetics To change by assibilation.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb insert a sibilant sound before or after (another sound)
  • verb change into a sibilant

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[ad– + sibilate.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin assībilātus ("murmured, whispered at, hissed"), past participle of assībilō ("hiss at", v), from ad ("at") + sībilō ("hiss", v), from sībilus ("a hissing, whistling"), of imitative origin.

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Examples

Comments

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  • To pronounce with a hisssssssss or sibilant.

    May 22, 2008