nasal

adjective nah-ZAHL Rare

Origin: Latin nasus (nose)

Usage Note

Nasal describes anything relating to the nose — a voix nasale (nasal voice) or, in phonetics, a voyelle nasale (nasal vowel). French has four nasal vowels (as in vin, vent, vont, un), making this a key term in French phonology lessons. The plural masculine is nasaux, following the pattern of adjectives ending in -al.

Examples

"Le français possède plusieurs voyelles nasales distinctives."

Natural Translation

French has several distinctive nasal vowels.

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