affricate

Meanings

1. 1nouncountabletechnical

   A speech sound that begins as a stop and is released slowly into a fricative, such as the 'ch' in church.

   Grammar: Countable: an affricate, two affricates. The verb form is 'affricate' too, but the noun is far more common.

   Patterns

   • an affricate sound
   • the affricates of English

   English has two common affricates, heard in 'church' and 'judge'.

   The teacher asked the class to list the affricates in the sentence.

   In some accents the affricate at the end of 'bat' is missing.

2. 2verbtransitivetechnical

   To pronounce a sound as an affricate, joining a stop and a fricative together.

   Grammar: Takes an object: affricate a sound. Rare outside phonetics.

   Patterns

   • affricate a sound

   Speakers of that dialect affricate the final consonant.

   The sound is affricated before a front vowel.

Word forms

Common combinations

voiceless affricate

The 'ch' in 'chair' is a voiceless affricate.

voiced affricate

The sound at the start of 'jump' is a voiced affricate.

affricate consonant

Linguists list the affricate consonants of each language.

produce an affricate

To make this sound, you produce an affricate by blocking and then releasing air.

Synonyms and how they differ

fricative

A fricative is made with a narrow gap and no complete stop, while an affricate starts with a full stop.

stop

A stop blocks the air completely; an affricate blocks it and then lets it out slowly.

Word family

affrication noun

The act or process of pronouncing something as an affricate.

affricated adjective

Describes a sound that is pronounced as an affricate.

Commonly confused: affricate or fricative?

Practice

Make it your own

Write a sentence using “affricate”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.

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