voiceless
adj/ˈvɔɪsləs/
Etymology From voice + -less.
1
Lacking a voice, without vocal sound.
- How people, with any pretence to decency or cleanliness, can, for a day, sit voiceless and patient and see these brutes destroy and befilth everything, public and private, is difficult to believe.1890, Albert Kimsey Owen, Integral Co-operation at Work ... - Page 105:
- A voiceless song in an ageless light / Sings at the coming dawn / Birds in flight are calling there / Where the heart moves the stones / It's there that my heart is calling / All for the love of you.1994, Loreena McKennitt, The Mystic's Dream:
2
Figuratively Without a vote; having no input into a decision.
- I've come to see she is a voiceless person in her world, and so I try to remember to stop and give her my full-faced attention when I see her.2011, Jan Johnson, Living a Purpose-Full Life:
- I feel like hip-hop / Used to be a voice for the voiceless, you know? / And now it's become, at least in the mainstream, a symbol of / misogyny, gay panic, fiscal irresponsibility, you know? / So I figure / if you can't beat 'em / join 'em2010, Bo Burnham, “Oh Bo”, in Words Words Words:
3
Human sciences, Linguistics, Phonetics, Phonology, Sciences Of a consonant or vowel Spoken without vibration of the vocal cords; unvoiced, surd, breathed. Examples: [t], [s], [f], [m̥], [u̥].
- Derived terms
- prevoiceless, pre-voiceless, voicelessly, voicelessness
- Related terms
- speechless