palatal

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

• adjective Of or relating to the palate.
• adjective Produced with the front of the tongue near or against the hard palate, as the (y) in English young.
• adjective Produced with the blade of the tongue near the hard palate, as the (ch) in English chin.
• adjective Produced with the front of the tongue in a forward position. Used of a vowel.
• noun A palatal sound.

from The Century Dictionary.

• Situated on the outer lip, as the teeth at the aperture of a shell.
• In anatomy, of or pertaining to the palate; palatine: as, palatal arteries, nerves, muscles; the palatal plate of the maxillary bone. Also palatial.
• Uttered by the aid of the palate, as certain sounds. See II., 2.
• noun A palatine bone or palate-bone proper, one of a pair, right and left, of facial bones entering into the formation of the hard palate.
• noun A sound usually produced by the upper surface of the tongue against a part of the palate further forward than that at which our kand g are made; but sometimes used of any sound made between the tongue and any part of the hard or soft palate.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• adjective Of or pertaining to the palate; palatine.
• adjective (Phonetics) Uttered by the aid of the palate; -- said of certain sounds, as the sound of k in kirk.
• noun (Phon.) A sound uttered, or a letter pronounced, by the aid of the palate, as the letters k and y.

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

• adjective anatomy Pertaining to the palate.
• adjective dentistry, not comparable Of an upper tooth, on the side facing the palate.
• adjective phonetics Articulated at the hard palate.
• noun phonetics A palatal consonant.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• adjective relating to or lying near the palate
• adjective produced with the front of the tongue near or touching the hard palate (as `y') or with the blade of the tongue near the hard palate (as `ch' in `chin' or `j' in `gin')
• noun a semivowel produced with the tongue near the palate (like the initial sound in the English word `yeast')