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guttural

adjective · noun

Simple meaning

About or articulated in the throat.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

guhteruhl

Say the bold part a little louder.

US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɡʌtɚəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. medicineanatomy

    Relating to or articulated in the throat

    “The glottal stop and uvular `r' and `ch' in German `Bach' are guttural sounds.”

  2. Sounding harsh and throaty.

  3. medicineanatomy

    Of, relating to, or connected to the throat.

noun

  1. A harsh and throaty spoken sound

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Relating to or articulated in the throat

Used this way, guttural is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a clinical use: it belongs to medical description, where it is factual rather than emotive.

Heard in a sentence
“The glottal stop and uvular `r' and `ch' in German `Bach' are guttural sounds.”
Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Specialist/technical
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Specialized
Connotation
Clinical and technical
Usage feel
Technical and specialized

Where it naturally appears

  • Medicine/healthcare
  • Science
  • Technical/specialist writing

Usage note

In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.

Nearby words

  • cacophonous , rarer, so it draws attention

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use guttural

  • “The glottal stop and uvular `r' and `ch' in German `Bach' are guttural sounds.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Sounding / harsh

guttural soundguttural languageguttural noise

Other combinations

guttural pouchguttural voiceguttural accentguttural tone

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • guttural consonantnounCompound term

    A consonant articulated in the back of the mouth or throat.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: relating to or articulated in the throat

cacophonousRare

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.