affricate
/ˈæf.ɹɪ.kət/noun, verb
affricate is a noun meaning “A single speech sound produced combining a plosive and a fricative” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled A-F-F-R-I-C-A-T-E and has 3 syllables, and it appears about once in every 50 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of affricate is affricates.
What does affricate mean?
noun
- 1
A single speech sound produced combining a plosive and a fricative.
verb
- 1
To produce (a plosive) as an affricate.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce affricate?
- /ˈæf.ɹɪ.kət/
- /ˈæf.ɹɪ.keɪt/
- /ˈæf.ɹə.kət/
As a verb (“To produce (a plosive) as an affricate”): /ˈæf.ɹɪ.keɪt/, /ˈæf.ɹə.kət/, /ˈæf.ɹə.keɪt/.
Affricate has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-affricate.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of affricate
- affricates plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- affricating participle, present
- affricated participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is affricate?
Affricate appears about once in every 50 million words in written English, the 220,118th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Affricate in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | affriquée |
| German | Affrikata, Affrikate, Verschlussreibelaut |
| Portuguese | africada |
| Spanish | africada , africar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does affricate come from?
Borrowed from Latin affricātus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).