Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Marked by audible or noisy breathing.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or of the nature of breath.
  • In phonetics, accompanied with breath; pronounced with open glottis; uttered with breath.
  • Characterized by a conspicuous use of the breath: said usually of vocal sounds in which breath is needlessly and faultily wasted.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Accompanied by audible breathing.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

breath +‎ -y

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Examples

  • Rubyn wins for a while; Williams takes the lead after saying a few words in breathy tones.

    Fly Girls: TV series follows flight attendants at home and in the air 2010

  • Thanks!} * PSA (in breathy female voice): The Countess is allowed to misspell words for effect, at her own discretion.

    Archive 2005-01-01 2005

  • Smiling more widely than ever, she rolled down her window and called a breathy "Hi!" even before he reached the door.

    Rekindled Delinsky, Barbara 1983

  • What, is it going to be all overdubbed breathy singing and faked sex sounds?

    CHARTattack:News Feed 2010

  • This doesn't affect what I wrote; it's just more accurate since plain MIE *d becomes PIE *dʰ although I personally now believe that this stop only became "breathy" after the fragmentation of the PIE-speaking community had already occurred.

    Szemerenyi's Law and Mid IE 2008

  • This doesn't affect what I wrote; it's just more accurate since plain MIE *d becomes PIE *dʰ although I personally now believe that this stop only became "breathy" after the fragmentation of the PIE-speaking community had already occurred.

    Archive 2008-06-01 2008

  • Try another interpretation: During phonation shift, the modal *d of the onset phonemicized as *dʰ according to traditional theory remains modal while the second stop shifts to "breathy".

    Winter's Law in Balto-Slavic, "Hybrid Theory" and phonation - Part 2 2008

  • The medium -- to which is assigned the greater portion of every singer's work -- becomes "breathy" and hollow, the lower tones guttural, the higher tones shrill, and the voice, throughout its entire compass, harsh and unmanageable.

    Style in Singing W. E. Haslam

  • A "quiet, gentle voice" is conscientiously aimed at by many young teachers, with so great zeal that the tone becomes painfully repressed, "breathy," and timid.

    Stories to Tell Children Fifty-Four Stories With Some Suggestions For Telling Sara Cone Bryant

  • Certain states of mind, such as awe, caution, secrecy, fear, etc., produce in greater or less degree an aspirated or "breathy" quality, called the _whisper_ or _aspirate_:

    The Ontario High School Reader A.E. Marty

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