formant
|for-mant|
🇺🇸
/ˈfɔrmənt/
🇬🇧
/ˈfɔːmənt/
resonant peak of sound
Etymology
'formant' originates from French, specifically the word 'formant' (the present participle of 'former'), where the root 'form-' (from Latin 'formare') meant 'to form' or 'to shape'.
'formant' came into English scientific usage from the French present participle 'formant' in the early 20th century, being adopted in phonetics and acoustics to name resonant features of the vocal tract and other systems.
Initially it meant 'that which forms' or 'forming', but over time it evolved into the technical sense 'a resonant frequency or spectral peak', especially in speech science and acoustics.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a concentration of acoustic energy around a particular frequency in the speech spectrum, produced by resonances of the vocal tract; prominent spectral peaks that help distinguish vowel and some consonant qualities.
The first two formants are crucial for distinguishing vowel sounds.
Synonyms
Noun 2
in acoustics and audio/speech signal processing, a narrow-band resonance or prominent spectral peak in any sound-producing system (used more generally than only in human speech).
Engineers adjusted the formants to make the synthesized vowel sound more natural.
Synonyms
Last updated: 2025/10/29 09:27