FromAncient Greekφωνή(phōnḗ,“voice, sound”) +-ate(verb-forming suffix), modelled afterphonation,[1] ultimately fromProto-Indo-European*bʰeh₂-(“to say, speak”).
phonate (third-person singular simple presentphonates,present participlephonating,simple past and past participlephonated)
- (intransitive) To makesounds with one'svoice.
1873, John Murray, “On Three Peculiar Cases of Molluscum Fibrosum in Children […]”, inMedico-chirurgical Transactions, volume LVI, London: Published by theRoyal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London;Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, […],→OCLC,page248:His voice is perfect; hephonates loudly and well.
1875 July, George M. Lefferts, “Report on Laryngology. No. II.”, in James B. Hunter, editor,The New York Medical Journal: A Monthly Record of Medicine and the Collateral Sciences, volume XXII, number 1, New York, N.Y.:D[aniel] Appleton and Company, […],→OCLC,page92:[A]s soon, however, as the patient endeavored to produce a higher note byphonating forcibly, the vocal cords were stretched unusually tight, the arytenoid cartilages were pressed spasmodically together, and no tone could be heard.
1973,Oliver Sacks,Awakenings, London:Duckworth,→ISBN; republished asAwakenings[1], London:Picador,2011,→ISBN:[O]ne finds patients unable to take a single step, who can dance with consummate ease and grace; patients unable tophonate, or utter a single word, who can sing without any difficulty, bringing to the music all the volume, all the richness and delicacy of intonation, all the feeling, that it demands.
1975,Philip Lieberman,On the Origins of Language: An Introduction to the Evolution of Human Speech, Lanham, Md.:University Press of America,→ISBN, page44; republished as Philip Lieberman,Sheila E[llen] Blumstein, “Source–filter Theory of Speech Production”, inSpeech Physiology, Speech Perception, and Acoustic Phonetics (Cambridge Studies in Speech Science and Communication), Cambridge:Cambridge University Press,1988,→ISBN,page36:Adult male speakers canphonate at fundamental frequencies that range between 80 and 300 Hz. Adult females and children normallyphonate at fundamental frequencies that range up to about 500 Hz, although the fundamental frequency can go up to 1.5 kHz [...]
1989, H. M. Teager, S. M. Teager, “Evidence for Nonlinear Sound Production Mechanisms in the Vocal Tract”, in William J. Hardcastle, Alain Marchal, editors,Speech Production and Speech Modelling (NATO ASI series, Series D, Behavioural and Social Sciences;55), Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic Publishers,→DOI,→ISBN,page242:[A] salesman from DISA came and tried to sell us a hot-wire anemometer. For the pure fun of it, I stuck the hot-wire in my mouth andphonated. I had thought that the actual flows that occurred in the mouth during speech were relatively small and that they would be quite uniform.
1997,Don DeLillo,Underworld: A Novel, New York, N.Y.:Scribner Classics,→ISBN; republished New York, N.Y.: Scribner,2014,→ISBN,page543:I wanted to look up velleity and quotidian and memorize the fuckers for all time, spell them, learn them, pronounce them syllable by syllable—vocalize,phonate, utter the sounds, say the words for all they're worth.
2011,David Blair McClosky, “The McClosky Technique: Posture and Breathing”, inYour Voice at Its Best: Enhancement of the Healthy Voice, Help for the Troubled Voice, 5th edition, Long Grove, Ill.: Waveland Press,→ISBN,page 1:If we are performing professionally, we must be able to keep onphonating for a long period of time while retaining a fresh, clear, and steady voice.
2014 August 8,Rupert Christiansen, “The truth about falsettos[print version: 12 August 2014, page R8]”, inJason Seiken, editor,The Daily Telegraph (Review)[2], London:Telegraph Media Group,→ISSN,→OCLC, archived fromthe original on16 December 2016:Basically, I [countertenorAnthony Roth Costanzo] use the same technique as a female mezzo-soprano, with one small physiological difference: I have to narrow my vocal cords tophonate [produce the sound].
- (transitive) To use one'svoice to makespecificsounds.
1876, Bernard Fraenkel, “The General Diagnosis and Therapeutics of Diseases of the Nose, Naso-pharyngeal Space, Pharynx, and Larynx”, in Edward W. Schauffler, transl., edited byH[ugo Wilhelm] von Ziemssen,Cyclopædia of the Practice of Medicine, volume IV (Diseases of the Respiratory Organs), New York, N.Y.: William Wood and Company, […],→OCLC,page41:[T]he tongue may rise up in the mouth, even while the patientphonates the vowel "a" [eh], in which case it will also need to be depressed by the finger, as just described.
1876 June, George M. Lefferts, “The Modern Methods of Examining the Upper Air Passages”, in E. C. Seguin, editor,A Series of American Clinical Lectures […], volume II, number 6, New York, N.Y.:G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, […],→OCLC,page177:The third and last difficulty [...] is the drawing up of the velum and uvula tightly against the pharyngeal wall, which occurs as soon as the patient opens the mouth widely, or as soon as your instruments are introduced within it; and when you remember that the position that we wish it to assume, the one that it must assume before your examination can be made, is precisely that which it takes when all muscular movement is in abeyance, and that the patient cannot assist you by carrying out any movements orphonating sounds, as he does in laryngoscopy, you will see the difficulty that presents itself.
1967,William Vennard,Singing: The Mechanism and the Technic, 5th edition, New York, N.Y.:Carl Fischer,→ISBN, paragraph 444,page124:Isshiki found that if a singer is asked tophonate Ee, Oo, and Ah at the same loudness he will actually make the Ah much louder than the other two. This is because he gauges loudness by the effort he is using, and in this experiment the subglottal pressure was the same for Ah and Oo, but the Ah was louder because the mouth was more open.
2005, Angel S. Recto, “Language and Writing”, inFoundations of Education: (Anthropological, Psychological, Sociological, and Moral), volume I, Manila:Rex Book Store,→ISBN, section 2.3 (Consonantal Writing System),page45:[S]uch consonants are are pronouncedel,em, anden in English; while similar consonants arephonatedla,ma,na in Filipino.
to make sounds with the voice
to use the voice to make (specific sounds)
FromAncient Greekφωνή(phōnḗ,“voice, sound”) +-ate(adjective-forming suffix, with perfect meaning).
phonate (notcomparable)
- voiced
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, March 2006;“phonate,v.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.