Sounding Board

Phil noticed the word part –sonant in a few familiar words such as consonant, dissonant, and resonant, and he wondered about the link among them and the frequency of use. A look at the Oxford English Dictionary reveals almost fifty words using that word part, but many of them are rare or obsolete.

The common link is a Latin verb (sonare) that meant to make a sound. The –ant suffix comes to us from Latin through French, and it is usually attached to adjective forms.

• absonant: harsh and inharmonious
• altisonant: high-sounding, lofty, or pompous
• armisonant: rustling with armor
• assonant: corresponding in vowel sound
• bisonant: having two sounds
• circumsonant: sounding on every side
• clarisonant: clear-sounding or shrill
• consonant: in agreement or concordance
• disconsonant: out of harmony; discordant
• dissonant: disagreeing; out of harmony
• dulcisonant: sweet-sounding
• equisonant: agreeing in the octave
• fluctisonant: sounding like waves
• grandisonant: stately-sounding
• horrisonant: horrible-sounding
• inconsonant: not agreeing or harmonizing with
• intersonant: sounding between
• irresonant: devoid of resonance
• luctisonant: mournful-sounding
• magnisonant: important-sounding
• mellisonant: sweet-sounding
• multisonant: producing many sounds
• resonant: causing prolongation of sound
• rhonchisonant: sounding like snoring
• sonant: voiced
• terrisonant: terrible-sounding
• trisonant: sounding in three ways
• undisonant: sounding like waves
• unisonant: of the same pitch or sound.

Hands down, my favorite is rhonchisonant.

Available from McFarland & Co.: Word Parts Dictionary, 2nd edition

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