Meanings
- not comparablehuman sciencesOf Greek consonants, neither aspirated nor voiced, as [p], [t],
- not comparablehuman sciencesOf obstruents in other languages, not voiced, aspirated, glottalized, or otherwise different in phonation from the prototypical values of the voiceless IPA letters ([p], [t], [k], [f], [θ], [s], [ʃ], etc.).
The superscript equal sign ˭ is here used to denote the Czech tenuis consonant, in this case the plosive [t˭], which lacks aspiration, in order to contrast it with its aspirated counterpart in English [tʰ].
2016, Malá & Šaffková, editor, ELT Revisited, page 11
plural tenues
- human sciencesA tenuis consonant.
The tenuis becomes aspirate in Low-German.
1887, Max Müller, (Please provide the book title or journal name)1 more example
Since the explosive was a tenuis before a consonant we have -p m- and -t n-; these combinations were mutated to mh and nh in the following examples, the voicelessness of the tenuis being retained after its assimilation
1913, John Morris-Jones, A Welsh grammar, page 184
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
- Latintenuis“thin, fine; weak”
- Englishtenuis
Unadapted borrowing from Latin tenuis (“thin, fine; weak”). Doublet of thin.
More words from Latin
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Sounds the same
Anagrams
Cite this entry
tenuis. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenuis
“tenuis.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenuis. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “tenuis,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/tenuis.
Source: tenuis on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.