thorn cluster

noun — 2 senses

thorn cluster

noun
1

Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences One of three consonant clusters historically believed by some scholars to have existed in Proto-Indo-European, all of which ended with the IPA sound /θ/ (then often symbolized as þ).

2

Human sciences, Linguistics, Sciences Any of the reconstructed consonant clusters that have replaced the original thorn clusters in modern scholarship, which typically no longer contain the IPA /θ/.

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.