sibilant consonant

Sibilants (from ) are fricative and affricate consonants of higher amplitude and pitch. Examples of sibilants are the consonants at the beginning of the English words sip, zip, ship, and genre. The symbols in the International Phonetic Alphabet used to denote the sibilant sounds in these words are, respectively, . Sibilants have a characteristically intense sound, which accounts for their paralinguistic use in getting one's attention (e.g. calling someone using "psst!" or quieting someone using "shhhh!").

==Overview== In the hissing sibilants and , the tongue forms a narrow channel (groove) to focus the stream of air towards the teeth, resulting in a higher pitched and more intense sound. With the hushing sibilants (occasionally termed shibilants), such as English , , , and , the tongue is flatter, and the resulting pitch lower.