Also called a spirant, it is a speech sound (i.e., consonant) characterized by a long interval of turbulence noise (called ‘frication’) due to forcing air through a constricted passage, and which sounds like hissing. Achieved by narrowing the passage of the mouth by placing two articulators close together so as to make the airflow turbulent, but to allow it to pass through without being interrupted. Examples include the initial phonemes in the words fire, high, see, show, thigh, vow, zoo, and azure for its second phoneme.
See Babbling, Bilabial, Final constant devoicing, Glottal, Labio-dental, Lateral sound, Lingua-alveolar (or alveolar), Lingua-dental (or dental), Liquid, Phoneme, Phonetical process, Phonology, Plosive, Rhotic sound