nasal

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: na=sal

CIDE DICTIONARY

nasal, a. [F., from L. nasus the nose. See Nose.].

•  Of or pertaining to the nose.  [1913 Webster]
•  Having a quality imparted by means of the nose; and specifically, made by lowering the soft palate, in some cases with closure of the oral passage, the voice thus issuing (wholly or partially) through the nose, as in the consonants m, n, ng (see Guide to Pronunciation, as, a nasal vowel; a nasal utterance.  [1913 Webster]

Nasal bones (Anat.), two bones of the skull, in front of the frontals. -- Nasal index (Anat.), in the skull, the ratio of the transverse breadth of the anterior nasal aperture to the height from the base of the aperture to the nasion, which latter distance is taken as the standard, equal to 100.

nasal, n. 

•  An elementary sound which is uttered through the nose, or through both the nose and the mouth simultaneously.  [1913 Webster]
•  A medicine that operates through the nose; an errhine.  [1913 Webster]
•  Part of a helmet projecting to protect the nose; a nose guard.  [1913 Webster]
•  One of the nasal bones.  [1913 Webster]
•  A plate, or scale, on the nose of a fish, etc.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

nasal, adj. & n.
--adj.
1 of, for, or relating to the nose.
2 Phonet. (of a letter or a sound) pronounced with the breath passing through the nose, e.g. m, n, ng, or French en, un, etc.
3 (of the voice or speech) having an intonation caused by breathing through the nose.
--n.
1 Phonet. a nasal letter or sound.
2 hist. a nose-piece on a helmet.

Derivative

nasality n. nasalize v.intr. & tr. (also -ise). nasalization n. nasally adv.

Etymology

F nasal or med.L nasalis f. L nasus nose

THESAURUS

nasal

accented, allophone, alveolar, apical, apico-alveolar, apico-dental, articulated, articulation, aspiration, assimilated, assimilation, asthmatic, back, barytone, bilabial, blurred, breathing, breathy, broad, cacuminal, central, cerebral, check, checked, choked, choking, close, consonant, consonantal, continuant, croaking, dental, diphthong, dissimilated, dissimilation, dorsal, drawling, drawly, dysphonic, epenthetic vowel, errhine, expiratory, explosive, flat, front, glide, glossal, glottal, glottalization, guttural, hard, harsh, hawking, heaving, heavy, high, hoarse, huffing, inarticulate, indistinct, inspiratory, intonated, labial, labialization, labiodental, labiovelar, laryngeal, lateral, lax, light, lingual, liquid, lisping, low, manner of articulation, mid, mispronounced, modification, monophthong, monophthongal, morphophoneme, mute, muted, muzzy, narrow, nasalized, occlusive, open, oxytone, palatal, palatalized, panting, parasitic vowel, peak, pharyngeal, pharyngealization, pharyngealized, phone, phoneme, phonemic, phonetic, phonic, pitch, pitched, plosive, pneumonic, posttonic, prothetic vowel, puffing, pulmonary, pulmonic, quavering, respiratory, retroflex, rhinal, rounded, segmental phoneme, semivowel, shaking, shaky, sneezy, sniffling, sniffly, sniffy, snoring, snorting, snuffling, snuffly, snuffy, soft, sonant, sonority, speech sound, sternutatory, stertorous, stifled, stop, stopped, strangled, stressed, strong, surd, syllabic, syllabic nucleus, syllabic peak, syllable, tense, thick, throaty, tonal, tonic, transition sound, tremulous, triphthong, twangy, unaccented, unrounded, unstressed, velar, vocable, vocalic, vocoid, voice, voiced, voiced sound, voiceless, voiceless sound, voicing, vowel, vowellike, weak, wheezing, wheezy, wide

ROGET THESAURUS

nasal

Stammering

N stammering, inarticulateness, stammering, hesitation, impediment in one's speech, titubancy, traulism, whisper, lisp, drawl, tardiloquence, nasal tone, nasal accent, twang, falsetto, broken voice, broken accents, broken sentences, brogue, slip of the tongue, lapsus linouae, stammering, inarticulate, guttural, nasal, tremulous, affected, sotto voce.