What is "sonorant"

n. (context phonetics English) A speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; the generic term of vowel, approximant, nasal consonant, etc.

In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and : approximants, nasals, flaps or taps, and most trills.

In older usage, only the term resonant was used with this meaning, and sonorant was a narrower term, referring to all resonants except vowels and semivowels.