lenition

phonetics

Also known as: consonant gradation

Written by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Last updated

June 30, 2026

Quick Summary

Lenition is a phonetic process where a consonant sound becomes "weaker" or "softer." This involves a change from a fortis (strong) articulation to a lenis (weak) articulation. For example, the 't' in "gutter" is lenis, while the 't' in "toe" is fortis.12

The term "lenite" means to undergo or transform by lenition. This type of sound change is a common aspect of linguistic evolution, where languages naturally change over time.34

Summary created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

4 Britannica Sources

Ask Britannica AI about this topic

Britannica doesn't have a full article on this topic, so we've curated a list of our relevant coverage.

Uralic languages
Consonant gradation
…known as consonant gradation (or lenition) is sometimes thought to be of Uralic origin. In Baltic-Finnic, excluding Veps and Livonian, earlier intervocalic single stops were typically replaced by voiced and fricative consonantal variants, and geminate (double) stops were shortened to single stops just in case the preceding vowel was stressed…
Read More
…known as consonant gradation (or lenition) is sometimes thought to be of Uralic origin. In Baltic-Finnic, excluding Veps and Livonian, earlier intervocalic single stops were typically replaced by voiced and fricative consonantal variants, and geminate (double) stops were shortened to single stops just in case the preceding vowel was stressed…
Read More