Nasal

Nasal

Adjective / Noun · /ˈneɪ.zəl/

Definition

(Adjective) of, relating to, or produced through the nose; (of a voice) having a quality produced by resonance in the nose; (Linguistics) of a consonant: produced with the soft palate lowered so that the airstream passes through the nose; (Noun) a nasal consonant (such as /m/, /n/, /ŋ/); (Historical) the nose guard of a medieval helmet.

Origin

From Medieval Latin nasalis, from Latin nasus (nose). The Latin nasus from Proto-Indo-European *nas- (nose), the same root giving nose (Old English nosu), nostril (Old English nosþyrl: nose hole), and the combining form naso- in medical terminology. Nasal in phonetics being one of the fundamental categories of consonant classification — sounds produced with nasal airflow.