phonate

present singular third person phonates · participle present phonating · participle past phonated · past phonated

1. intransitiveTo make sounds with one's voice.

   His voice is perfect; he phonates loudly and well.

   1873, John Murray, “On Three Peculiar Cases of Molluscum Fibrosum in Children […]”, in Medico-chirurgical Transactions, volume LVI, London: Published by the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London; Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, […], →OCLC, page 248

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   [A]s soon, however, as the patient endeavored to produce a higher note by phonating forcibly, the vocal cords were stretched unusually tight, the arytenoid cartilages were pressed spasmodically together, and no tone could be heard.

   1875 July, George M. Lefferts, “Report on Laryngology. No. II.”, in James B. Hunter, editor, The New York Medical Journal: A Monthly Record of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, volume XXII, number 1, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, […], →OCLC, page 92

   [O]ne finds patients unable to take a single step, who can dance with consummate ease and grace; patients unable to phonate, or utter a single word, who can sing without any difficulty, bringing to the music all the volume, all the richness and delicacy of intonation, all the feeling, that it demands.

   1973, Oliver Sacks, Awakenings, London: Duckworth, →ISBN; republished as Awakenings, London: Picador, 2011, →ISBN

   Adult male speakers can phonate at fundamental frequencies that range between 80 and 300 Hz. Adult females and children normally phonate at fundamental frequencies that range up to about 500 Hz, although the fundamental frequency can go up to 1.5 kHz [...]

   1975, Philip Lieberman, On the Origins of Language: An Introduction to the Evolution of Human Speech, Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, →ISBN, page 44; republished as Philip Lieberman, Sheila E[llen] Blumstein, “Source–filter Theory of Speech Production”, in Speech Physiology, Speech Perception, and Acoustic Phonetics (Cambridge Studies in Speech Science and Communication), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988, →ISBN, page 36

   [A] salesman from DISA came and tried to sell us a hot-wire anemometer. For the pure fun of it, I stuck the hot-wire in my mouth and phonated. I had thought that the actual flows that occurred in the mouth during speech were relatively small and that they would be quite uniform.

   1989, H. M. Teager, S. M. Teager, “Evidence for Nonlinear Sound Production Mechanisms in the Vocal Tract”, in William J. Hardcastle, Alain Marchal, editors, Speech Production and Speech Modelling (NATO ASI series, Series D, Behavioural and Social Sciences; 55), Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, →DOI, →ISBN, page 242

   I wanted to look up velleity and quotidian and memorize the fuckers for all time, spell them, learn them, pronounce them syllable by syllable—vocalize, phonate, utter the sounds, say the words for all they're worth.

   1997, Don DeLillo, Underworld: A Novel, New York, N.Y.: Scribner Classics, →ISBN; republished New York, N.Y.: Scribner, 2014, →ISBN, page 543

2. transitiveTo use one's voice to make specific sounds.

   [S]uch consonants are pronounced el, em, and en in English; while similar consonants are phonated la, ma, na in Filipino.

   2005, Angel S. Recto, “Language and Writing”, in Foundations of Education: (Anthropological, Psychological, Sociological, and Moral), volume I, Manila: Rex Book Store, →ISBN, section 2.3 (Consonantal Writing System), page 45

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   [T]he tongue may rise up in the mouth, even while the patient phonates the vowel "a" [eh], in which case it will also need to be depressed by the finger, as just described.

   1876, Bernard Fraenkel, “The General Diagnosis and Therapeutics of Diseases of the Nose, Naso-pharyngeal Space, Pharynx, and Larynx”, in Edward W. Schauffler, transl., edited by H[ugo Wilhelm] von Ziemssen, Cyclopædia of the Practice of Medicine, volume IV (Diseases of the Respiratory Organs), New York, N.Y.: William Wood and Company, […], →OCLC, page 41

   The third and last difficulty [...] is the drawing up of the velum and uvula tightly against the pharyngeal wall, which occurs as soon as the patient opens the mouth widely, or as soon as your instruments are introduced within it; and when you remember that the position that we wish it to assume, the one that it must assume before your examination can be made, is precisely that which it takes when all muscular movement is in abeyance, and that the patient cannot assist you by carrying out any movements or phonating sounds, as he does in laryngoscopy, you will see the difficulty that presents itself.

   1876 June, George M. Lefferts, “The Modern Methods of Examining the Upper Air Passages”, in E. C. Seguin, editor, A Series of American Clinical Lectures […], volume II, number 6, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, […], →OCLC, page 177

   Isshiki found that if a singer is asked to phonate Ee, Oo, and Ah at the same loudness he will actually make the Ah much louder than the other two. This is because he gauges loudness by the effort he is using, and in this experiment the subglottal pressure was the same for Ah and Oo, but the Ah was louder because the mouth was more open.

   1967, William Vennard, Singing: The Mechanism and the Technic, 5th edition, New York, N.Y.: Carl Fischer, →ISBN, paragraph 444, page 124

1. not comparablevoiced