noun
- consonant sounds produced by placing the tongue against or near the teeth
Usage: linguistics; phonetics
Examples
- The sounds /θ/ and /ð/ are examples of dentals in English.
- Spanish has more dentals than English does.
- Students learning phonetics must identify dentals correctly.
- The pronunciation of dentals varies between languages.
- Dentals are formed with the tongue touching the teeth.
- Some languages have no dentals in their sound system.