What is "dental consonant"

n. a consonant articulated with the tip of the tongue near the gum ridge [syn: alveolar consonant, alveolar]

A dental consonant is a consonant articulated with the tongue against the upper teeth, such as , , , and in some languages. Dentals are usually distinguished from sounds in which contact is made with the tongue and the gum ridge, as in English (see alveolar consonant) because of the acoustic similarity of the sounds and the fact that in the Roman alphabet, they are generally written using the same symbols (like t, d, n).

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, the diacritic for dental consonant is .