1. pronounced with relatively little muscular effort and breath force
Usage: phonetics

Examples

• The consonant /b/ is a lenis sound compared to /p/.
• In phonetics, lenis consonants require less air pressure than their fortis counterparts.
• The distinction between lenis and fortis sounds is important in many languages.
• Students of linguistics learn to identify lenis consonants by their softer articulation.
• The lenis quality of certain sounds affects their acoustic properties.