labialization
noun
labialization is a noun meaning “A secondary articulatory feature of usually consonants that involves the contraction or rounding of the lips (labia) during pronunciation” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-A-B-I-A-L-I-Z-A-T-I-O-N, and it appears about once in every 95 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of labialization is labializations.
What does labialization mean?
noun
- 1
A secondary articulatory feature of usually consonants that involves the contraction or rounding of the lips (labia) during pronunciation.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce labialization?
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-labialization.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of labialization
- labializations plural
- labialisation
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is labialization?
Labialization appears about once in every 95 million words in written English, the 313,259th 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).
Labialization in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense secondary articulatory feature:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | labialisation |
| German | Labialisierung |
| Portuguese | labialização |
| Spanish | labialización |
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 labialization come from?
From labialize + -ation or labial + -ization.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).