fortis
/ˈfɔː(ɹ)tɪs/adjective, noun
fortis is an adjective meaning “Relatively strongly articulated, hence voiceless and possibly aspirated; especially as compared to the others of a group of homorganic consonants” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-R-T-I-S and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 3 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does fortis mean?
adjective
- 1
Relatively strongly articulated, hence voiceless and possibly aspirated; especially as compared to the others of a group of homorganic consonants.
Unaspirated [p] is fortis in French, the corresponding lenis consonant being [b]. The same sound is lenis in Danish, the corresponding fortis consonant being [pʰ].
noun
- 1
A fortis consonant.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce fortis?
- /ˈfɔː(ɹ)tɪs/
Fortis has 2 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Flame,_not_lame-fortis.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of fortis
- fortes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is fortis?
Fortis appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 53,573rd 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).
Where does fortis come from?
Learned borrowing from Latin fortis (“strong”). Doublet of fort and forte.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).