formant
noun/ˈfɔː(ɹ)mənt/
Etymology Borrowed from German Formant, from Latin fōrmāns (“shaping; forming; fashioning”), present participle of fōrmō (“to shape; to form; to fashion”). Doublet of formans.
1
Human sciences, Linguistics, Natural sciences, Phonetics, Phonology, Physical sciences, Physics, Sciences A band of frequencies in a sound spectrum that have greater intensity and determine the quality of a sound, especially the characteristic sounds of the consonants.
- The resonances of the vocal tract are called formants. Trying to hear the separate formants in a vowel is difficult. We are so used to a vowel being a single meaningful entity that it is difficult to consider it as a sound with separable bits. But it is possible to say vowels so that some of their component parts are more obvious.2012, Peter Ladefoged, Sandra Ferrari Disner, Vowels and Consonants, Kindle edition, New York: Wiley, →ISBN:
2
Human sciences, Linguistic morphology, Linguistics, Morphology, Sciences Synonym of formative (“a language unit, typically a morph, that has a morphological function”).