lenis
/ˈliːnɪs/adjective, noun
lenis is an adjective meaning “Relatively weakly articulated, hence unaspirated and possibly voiced; especially as compared to the others of a group of homorganic consonants” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled L-E-N-I-S and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 35 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does lenis mean?
adjective
- 1
Relatively weakly articulated, hence unaspirated and possibly voiced; especially as compared to the others of a group of homorganic consonants.
Unaspirated [p] is lenis in Danish, the corresponding fortis consonant being [pʰ]. The same sound is fortis in French, the corresponding lenis consonant being [b].
noun
- 1
A lenis consonant.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce lenis?
- /ˈliːnɪs/
- /ˈleɪnɪs/
- /ˈlɛnɪs/
Lenis 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-lenis.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of lenis
- lenes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is lenis?
Lenis appears about once in every 35 million words in written English, the 182,517th 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 lenis come from?
Borrowed from Latin lēnis (“soft, smooth”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).