How to Use consonant in a Sentence

consonant

1 of 2 adjective
  • The rule is that a precedes consonant sounds and an precedes vowel sounds — a, e, i, o and u.
    Richard Lederer, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Mar. 2021
  • The music was both varied and likable across a range of tastes, which is to say, consonant with the theme of difference in union.
    Robert Lloyd, Los Angeles Times, 21 Jan. 2021
  • In ordinary tonal speech, the vocal cords make the pitch modulations that form the tones while the front of the mouth forms much of the vowel and consonant sounds.
    Bob Holmes, Smithsonian Magazine, 24 Aug. 2021
  • These unvoiced consonant sounds are common in most of our species’ languages.
    Jan Osterkamp, Scientific American, 8 Mar. 2021
  • So the only way to get there—and in any case the only way that is consonant with Trump’s toxic modus operandi—is to smear Biden as (1) corrupt and (2) a closet Marxist.
    Michael Tomasky, The New York Review of Books, 4 June 2020
  • There is plenty of fun, consonant trivia about internet stock trading bulletin boards and chat rooms, as well as from the retail trading boom of the 1990s.
    New York Times, 29 Jan. 2021
  • But if streaming has facilitated the use of the F-word, with its punchy hard-consonant ending, why are artists and listeners increasingly drawn to it in the first place?
    Los Angeles Times, 8 Mar. 2022
  • Set in a small town in rural white America in the middle of flyover country, APT is not only staging world-class work, consonant with its history of offering the same.
    Mike Fischer, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 3 July 2017
  • This was consonant, repetitious music, major and balladic in tone, but not form.
    Giovanni Russonello, New York Times, 12 Dec. 2017
  • An alternative theory is far more consonant with the facts.
    Joseph E. Stiglitz, Scientific American, 1 Nov. 2018
  • The single change in consonant doesn’t begin to encompass the transformation.
    Steven Levy, Wired, 7 Feb. 2020
  • The outlawing and expulsion of those who disagree is completely consonant with his concept of freedom. . . .
    Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 17 Jan. 2022
  • Clearly the curators have a strong, focused vision that’s refreshingly consonant with the collection and its home.
    Brian T. Allen, National Review, 12 June 2021
  • But in terms of presidential history, Trump’s use of the executive toolbox is very much consonant with past practice.
    Andrew Rudalevige, Washington Post, 20 Jan. 2018
  • Drawing from the cadences and content of Hawaiian chants as well as the consonant twang of country music, the group combined historical reverence with show-business appeal.
    Nate Chinen, New York Times, 24 Jan. 2017
  • In a third-grade classroom, a two-member teaching team split up students for small-group reading, then the class gathered to decode consonant combinations as a group, some drawing on their one-on-one time with the reading specialist.
    Christopher Huffaker, BostonGlobe.com, 6 Nov. 2022
  • Yiddish Jews were one recognized minority group in the ethnic hodgepodge of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires, and the only group whose status wasn’t consonant with a piece of land.
    Martin Peretz, WSJ, 8 May 2018
  • Sample garments abound on shelves and dress forms at Knit Schitck — schtick being Yiddish for an entertainer’s routine and sharing some consonant sounds with stecken, German for stick, like knitting needles might be.
    Hillary Davis, Daily Pilot, 13 Sep. 2019
  • The show’s themes seem particularly consonant now in a country whose political atmosphere seems sick at heart.
    Peter Marks, Washington Post, 22 Aug. 2019
  • Tiny delays after certain sound combinations—such as consonant clusters—could help us distinguish words in noisy settings.
    Catherine Matacic, Science | AAAS, 24 Apr. 2018
  • The study found the Neanderthal ear’s sweet spot extended toward frequencies of 3 to 5 kHz, which are specifically dedicated to consonant production.
    New York Times, 1 Mar. 2021
  • Only a few situations produced fast and strong air jets capable of traveling up to a few feet or so: singing consonant sounds with an almost closed mouth, and exhaling between bouts of playing, particularly for oboe players.
    Calli McMurray, Smithsonian Magazine, 22 Nov. 2022
  • The Assad government issued visas selectively and its minders herded journalists to stories that were consonant with its narrative.
    Muhammad Idrees Ahmad, The New York Review of Books, 7 Sep. 2018
  • Homing in assiduously on sexuality and faith as consonant or conflicting forces, the play can be heartbreaking, as when exploring Chris’s trauma.
    Celia Wren, Washington Post, 27 June 2022
  • But some languages use abjads instead, which are basically consonant alphabets.
    Melissa Mohr, The Christian Science Monitor, 21 Mar. 2022
  • The Founders’ art consisted in the creation of a national institutional framework consonant with the Revolutionary commitment to local self-government.
    Thomas Wendel, National Review, 4 July 2019
  • The study found the Neanderthal ear's sweet spot extended toward frequencies specifically dedicated to consonant production.
    Star Tribune, 11 Mar. 2021
  • Throughout the weekend, speakers put forward a vision for conservative political economy that’s consonant with both Americanism and conservatism.
    Kevin Roberts, National Review, 4 Aug. 2022
  • Surely accompanied by violinist Byungchan Lee, Peterson’s understated language of consonant chords put together in unexpected ways suggested short stories told in a spare style, hiding turbulent emotions beneath.
    San Diego Union-Tribune, 18 Aug. 2021
  • The three operas varied distinctly 21st-century musical strategies, triangulating film music, Sondheim and latter-day minimalism’s consonant drive.
    Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2020
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consonant

2 of 2 noun
  • The more words, the less fill — and so the fewer consonants.
    Washington Post, 17 Oct. 2019
  • The Clue: This word starts with a consonant and ends with a vowel.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 4 Feb. 2023
  • The Clue: This word has more consonants than vowels in it.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 6 May 2023
  • The Clue: There are way more consonants than vowels in this word.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 1 Apr. 2023
  • The Clue: There are more vowels than consonants in this word.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 26 Mar. 2023
  • The Clue: There are more consonants than vowels in this word.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 7 Mar. 2023
  • Short, clear names with one to two consonants also work better than a lengthy name.
    Zoë Gowen, Southern Living, 20 Sep. 2016
  • Short, clear names with one to two consonants also work better than a lengthy name.
    Zoë Gowen, Southern Living, 1 May 2017
  • The tongues of native New Yorkers land heavy on consonants, and on vowels, too.
    Mark Warren, Popular Mechanics, 23 Mar. 2017
  • The Clue: This word ends in a letter that can function as either a vowel or a consonant.
    Erik Kain, Forbes, 30 Dec. 2022
  • Instead, the contestant in control of the wheel at the time will spin to determine the amount each consonant is worth during the speed up round.
    Michael Schneider, Variety, 8 Sep. 2021
  • The ebbs and flows of History come in much grander scale, and the heat currently on display around the planet is consonant with that kind of much grander change.
    Bill McKibben, The New Yorker, 26 July 2023
  • Jason Pieper planted the 9-foot-tall and 11½-foot-wide consonant outside his Lake Elmo home in time for it to be dusted with a light snow.
    Paul Walsh, Star Tribune, 14 Dec. 2020
  • Click sounds, such as those found in some languages in Africa, make perfectly good consonants.
    Anne Pycha, Scientific American, 1 Dec. 2017
  • Around the edge are Korean consonants meant to represent the effort of the athletes.
    NBC News, 1 Nov. 2017
  • Names that start with consonants are not popular right now.
    CBS News, 24 Sep. 2017
  • Listen to her long vowels and keen consonants; listen to the leitmotif of pain.
    Wayne Koestenbaum, New York Times, 15 July 2016
  • The effect hollows out his tone and emphasizes the consonants and breaths in his performance.
    Tom Roland, Billboard, 1 Aug. 2023
  • This was consonant with his long-term taste for DIY, and just a different form of tinkering, of seeing things from all angles.
    Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 4 May 2023
  • But diction was mushy — this in German, a language of forward vowels and crisp consonants.
    Scott Cantrell, Dallas News, 9 June 2023
  • But if that vowel was followed by a consonant, the time after the beat went up an average of 80 milliseconds.
    Catherine Matacic, Science | AAAS, 24 Apr. 2018
  • Whiskey and wine share a common consonant, and the two beverages will also share top billing at the Chicago Whiskey & Wine Festival.
    Adam Lukach, RedEye Chicago, 23 Feb. 2018
  • Chords, some consonant, some whatever the cat might have created walking on the keys, came and went, came and went, most quietly.
    Mark Swed, latimes.com, 3 June 2019
  • Jacksonville, the franchise that couldn’t spell Super Bowl if Vanna White hand-delivered all of the consonants, has won 12 of its past 15 games dating to last season.
    Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 30 Oct. 2023
  • What felt real was Italian accents; names with more vowels than consonants; nuns who played baseball with us in the schoolyard; and Msgr.
    Elise Patkotak, Alaska Dispatch News, 27 June 2017
  • Jason Pieper outlasted all the others and on Tuesday won the two-week online battle for the giant metal consonant that drew 66 bids.
    Paul Walsh, Star Tribune, 1 Dec. 2020
  • That consonant is tooth and jowl, With every letter, every vowel.
    Lou Craft, New York Times, 4 Sep. 2017
  • This tells me that the ability to separate the tonal contour from the consonants and vowels must be a crucial component of this illusion.
    Ben MacAulay, Popular Science, 22 June 2023
  • Neither, exactly; their meanings always slip from their constituent consonants and vowels, drip, puddle, cling to the roof of your mouth.
    Jason Farago, New York Times, 7 Sep. 2023
  • And most of these weren’t phonetic alphabets with consonants and vowels.
    Jennie Rothenberg Gritz, Smithsonian Magazine, 4 May 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'consonant.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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