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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Voicelessness

Voiceless \Voice"less\, a.

  1. Having no voice, utterance, or vote; silent; mute; dumb.

    I live and die unheard, With a most voiceless thought, sheathing it as a sword.
    --Byron.

  2. (Phon.) Not sounded with voice; as, a voiceless consonant; surd.

    Voiceless stop (Phon.), a consonant made with no audible sound except in the transition to or from another sound; a surd mute, as p, t, k. [1913 Webster] -- Voice"less*ly, adv. -- Voice"less*ness, n.

Wiktionary
voicelessness

n. The condition of being voiceless

WordNet
voicelessness

n. a disorder of the vocal organs that results in the loss of voice [syn: aphonia]

Wikipedia
Voicelessness

In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies voicing and that voicelessness is the lack of phonation.

The International Phonetic Alphabet has distinct letters for many voiceless and modally voiced pairs of consonants (the obstruents), such as . Also, there are diacritics for voicelessness, and , which is used for letters with a descender. Diacritics are typically used with letters for prototypically voiced sounds, such as vowels and sonorant consonants: .

Usage examples of "voicelessness".

It was fairly common for those in the first inflationary rush of infatuation, lust or love to embrace almost exclusively the inner voicelessness of implant-articulation in preference to the somehow physically off-putting and clumsy medium of normal speech, and although Pieter did not think Lucia jealous of their guest - any more than Gil seemed able to spare the girl more than the most cursory attention - she did seem to resent both the simple distraction she represented and the fact Pieter had suggested they communicate by speech in deference to the girl's seeming total lack of implants.