lax vowel

plural lax vowels

1. human sciencesA vowel produced with relatively little constriction of the vocal tract.

   Some vowels in English are made with roughly the same tongue position as the tense vowels, but with less constricted articulation; they are called lax vowels.

   2001, Michael Dobrovolsky, “Phonetics: The Sounds of Language”, in William O'Grady, John Archibald, Mark Aronoff, Janie Rees-Miller, editors, Contemporary Linguistics, →ISBN, page 35