consonant

What it means

1. human sciencesA sound that results from the passage of air through restrictions of the oral cavity; any sound that is not the nucleus of a syllable, the nucleus generally being a vowel.
2. A letter representing the sound of a consonant.

   “Tell me, has right anything to do with the law?” I asked. “You have used the wrong initial consonant,” he smiled in answer. “Might?” I queried; and he nodded his head.

   1908 February 19, Jack London, chapter 4, in The Iron Heel, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC

   1 more example

   Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.

   1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC

In a sentence

Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however, understood him very well.

1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Indo-European*ḱe?
2. Proto-Indo-European*ḱóm
3. Proto-Italic*kom
4. Proto-Italic*kom-
5. Latincon-
6. Proto-Indo-European*swenh₂-
7. Proto-Indo-European*swonh₂éyeti
8. Proto-Italic*swonaō
9. Latinsonō
10. Latincōnsonō
11. Latincōnsonāns
12. Old Frenchconsonant
13. Middle Englishconsonant
14. Englishconsonant

From Middle English consonant or consonaunt, from Old French consonant, from Latin cōnsonāns (“sounding with”), from the prefix con- (“with”) + the present participle sonāns (“sounding”), from sonāre (“to sound”). The Latin is a calque of Ancient Greek σύμφωνον (súmphōnon).