Definition of "obstruent" [ob•stru•ent]

• Obstructing or closing natural openings or passages of the body. (adjective)
• An obstruent medicine or agent. (noun)
• Linguistics A sound, such as a stop, fricative, or affricate, that is produced with complete blockage or at least partial constriction of the airflow through the nose or mouth. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "If I'm correct about terminal obstruent devoicing continuing in the region, then they never did speak Old High German as we usually think of it note that terminal obstruent devoicing is one of the criteria for distinguishing MHG from OHG."
• "This led to terminal obstruent devoicing spreading to the rest of the continuum, and I suspect that þd may also have originated with the Franconian node though this is little more than speculation."
• "For instance, in the prehistory of Modern Persian, apocope introduced word-final clusters of obstruent or nasal + r."