nonpulmonic
|non-pul-mo-nic|
🇺🇸
/ˌnɑn.pəlˈmɑnɪk/
🇬🇧
/ˌnɒn.pʊlˈmɒnɪk/
not produced by the lungs
Etymology
'nonpulmonic' originates from Modern English composition of the prefix 'non-' (from Latin 'non', meaning 'not') + 'pulmonic', where 'pulmonic' comes from Latin 'pulmo' meaning 'lung' with the adjectival suffix '-ic'.
'pulmonic' derives from Latin 'pulmo' ('lung') via New/Scientific Latin 'pulmon-' + English adjectival suffix '-ic', and 'nonpulmonic' formed in modern linguistic usage by prefixing English 'non-' to 'pulmonic' to indicate 'not pulmonic'.
Initially elements meant 'not' (non-) and 'lung' (pulmo), and the compound came to mean 'not produced by the lungs' specifically referring to airstream mechanisms in phonetics.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
a sound (usually a consonant) that is produced using a nonpulmonic airstream mechanism.
Linguists catalogued several nonpulmonics in the field recordings.
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Antonyms
Adjective 1
describing speech sounds (typically consonants) that are produced with an airstream mechanism other than the pulmonic (lung) airstream, e.g. clicks, implosives, ejectives.
Nonpulmonic consonants such as clicks and ejectives occur in a number of languages.
Synonyms
Antonyms
Last updated: 2025/12/29 01:41