Meanings
- uncountableA low creaky vocal vibration caused by rapid vibration of the vocal chords, common in some languages such as Finnish. In English, often associated with older Received Pronunciation and more recent North American speech patterns.
Vocal fry is safe as long as you do not do it too loudly or for too long.
2014, Matthew Edwards, So You Want to Sing Rock 'n' Roll: A Guide for Professionals, →ISBN, page 1125 more examples
Some individuals have overlooked the fact that at such low pitch their voices fade to inaudibility at the ends of sentences, or scrape down to vocal fry.
1975, Hilda B. Fisher, Improving voice and articulation, page 158It is perhaps easiest to see the superimposition of vocal fry, so we will begin with this behavior.
2004, Lloyd M. Hulit, Straight Talk on Stuttering, →ISBN, page 55Pop singers, such as Britney Spears, slip vocal fry into their music as a way to reach low notes and add style.
2011 December 9, Marissa Fessenden, “'Vocal Fry' Creeping Into U.S. Speech”, in ScienceVocal fry or creaky voice refers to a voice quality characterized by irregular glottal opening and low pitch. It occurs in diverse languages and is prevalent in American English, where it is used not only to mark phrase finality, but also sociolinguistic factors and affect.
2022, Bronya Roni Chernyak, Talia Ben Simon, Yael Segal, Jeremy Steffman, Eleanor Chodroff, “DeepFry: Identifying Vocal Fry Using Deep Neural Networks”, in Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the International Speech Communication Association, →DOI, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2024, pages 3578–3582Yes, you can detect a bit of Johansson’s clear, low tone and a hint of vocal fry, though at times that just sounds like some grainy digitalization.
2024 May 20, Alissa Wilkinson, “What We Lose When ChatGPT Sounds Like Scarlett Johansson”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 16 Jun 2024Synonyms: creaky phonation, creaky voice, glottal fry, popcorning
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA low creaky vocal vibration caused by rapid vibration of the vocal chords, common in some languages such as Finnish. In English, often associated with older Received Pronunciation and more recent North American speech patterns.
Origin
From the resemblance of the noise to the sound of hot fat sputtering in a skillet.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Catalan laringalització, crepitació
- laringalitzacióvibration of the vocal chords
- crepitacióvibration of the vocal chords
Chinese Mandarin 氣泡音 /气泡音
- 氣泡音 /气泡音 (qìpàoyīn)vibration of the vocal chords
Dutch vocal fry
- vocal fryvibration of the vocal chords
Finnish narina
- narinavibration of the vocal chords
Polish vocal fry
- vocal fryvibration of the vocal chords
Spanish laringalización, voz laringalizada
- laringalizaciónvibration of the vocal chords
- voz laringalizadavibration of the vocal chords
Cite this entry
vocal fry. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vocal%20fry
“vocal fry.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vocal%20fry. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “vocal fry,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/vocal%20fry.
Source: vocal fry on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.