vocal
Noun pluralvocals
Pluralvocals
- 1Outspoken in making one's opinions or feelings known, often loudly or repeatedly.
The senator was vocal in her opposition to the bill.
Critics became increasingly vocal about the company's labor practices.
Note
The sense of public life, and the one that takes degrees: very vocal, more vocal, most vocal. It is followed by in or about. People are vocal in their message or in their opposition, and they are vocal about a topic. Outspoken and loud are its near neighbors, but vocal puts the stress on speaking up repeatedly and in public.
- 2Having to do with the human voice, or written, arranged, or performed for singers.
The album features purely vocal tracks with no instrumental backing.
Her vocal technique improved after years of choral training.
Oppositeinstrumental
Note
Musicians use the word to set what is sung against what is played: vocal music, a vocal line, a vocal arrangement of a piece first written for instruments. Here it is an adjective placed before its noun. When the sung part itself is meant, music writing switches to the noun, the sung part of a track, and speaks of a punchy vocal or the vocals in the mix.
- 3Having to do with the human voice or with speech, or sounding like them.
Researchers studied the vocal patterns of newborns.
The instrument produced an oddly vocal tone, almost like a human cry.
Note
The root that every other sense grows from: Latin vōcālis, "uttering a voice, sounding, speaking," built on vōx, "voice." English borrowed it in late Middle English. The same Latin source also gave English vowel, so the two words are doublets, one learned and one worn smooth. In everyday use this sense attaches to things that belong to the voice itself, as in vocal problems.
- 4Spoken aloud or shaped by the voice; put into words.
Their consent was vocal and unmistakable.
He preferred vocal instructions to written memos.
Oppositesilent, voiceless, inaudible
Note
The contrast that matters is with silence. Vocal prayer is prayer said aloud rather than silent prayer, and vocal worship is worship that is sung or spoken. Oral and audible come close in meaning. Keep it distinct from the outspoken meaning: something vocal in this sense has simply been voiced, while a vocal critic keeps on speaking up.
- 5The sung portion of a piece of music.
The producer mixed the vocal louder than the backing track.
Layered vocals gave the chorus a rich, full sound.
Similarsong
Note
A noun of studios and record reviews. Billboard in 1975 praised "a punchy vocal by Teresa Brewer," and vocal by is how a sung part is credited to its singer. The singular names one sung line, while the plural vocals covers the whole sung layer, lead and backing together. Song is a near synonym, but a song includes the instruments and a vocal does not.
- 6A musical performance that involves singing.
The talent night opened with a stirring vocal from the choir's soloist.
Critics praised the vocals at the charity gala.
Similarsong
- 7Involved in producing the sounds of speech.
The vocal folds open and close rapidly during phonation.
Smoking can damage the delicate vocal tissues.
Note
Anatomy uses the word to sort body parts by their job: the vocal apparatus, the vocal folds, the vocal tissues of the throat. As a classifying adjective it stands before its noun and is not graded, so one structure is never "more vocal" than another. That comparative belongs to the outspoken meaning.
- 8Able to produce, or actively producing, voice, speech, or other sounds.
Howler monkeys are among the most vocal of all primates.
The species becomes especially vocal at dawn.
Oppositesilent, voiceless, inaudible
Note
A poet's sense as much as a naturalist's, because it lets speechless things give sound. In Milton's Paradise Lost (1667), hill and valley are "made vocal by my song." In Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850), the wave "is vocal in its wooded walls." Made vocal is the construction to notice: it lends a voice to whatever cannot speak, while plain prose uses the adjective for noisy animals.
- 9Expressive; conveying feeling or meaning vividly.
The portrait was strikingly vocal, every brushstroke charged with emotion.
At the reunion, the empty chair at the head of the table was more vocal than any eulogy.
Similarexpressive
- 10Characterized by tone produced in the larynx, whether shaped by resonance, as in vowels, or by partial obstruction, as in consonants like v, l, m, and n.
Linguists classify the nasal m as a vocal consonant.
Vowels are vocal sounds shaped mainly by resonance in the mouth.
Note
Phonetics here groups together every sound made with tone from the larynx. That is why vowels share the label with consonants such as v and l and the nasals m, n and ng. Voiced and sonant name the same property and are the clearer words to use, because a reader may take vocal to mean "vowel-like," which is the vowel meaning.
- 11Functioning as or relating to a vowel; vocalic.
Some sonorant consonants take on a vocal function between other sounds.
The syllable's vocal nucleus carries its stress.
Similarvocalic
Oppositeconsonantal
Note
Here the word means vowel-like: a sound that does a vowel's work at the center of a syllable, as the final l of bottle can when no vowel stands beside it. Vocalic means the same and is the safer choice in writing, since vocal on its own is easily heard as "to do with the voice." The likeness to vowel is no accident, as the shared Latin source shows.
- 12A purely voiced element of speech, unmodified except by resonance, such as a vowel or diphthong.
Each vocal in the syllable rings clearly when the word is sung slowly.
Old grammars list the vocals separately from the consonants.
Similarvowel
Oppositeconsonant
Note
The noun older phonetics used for a vowel or diphthong: a sound of pure voice, shaped only by resonance, as opposed to consonants that obstruct the breath. Old grammars list the vocals apart from the consonants. Vowel is the word to use today, and its kinship with this noun goes back to the shared Latin source.
- 13Full of voices; resounding with voices.
The forest was vocal with birdsong at dawn.
The crowded square grew vocal with protest.
Similarresounding
- 14A man in the Roman Catholic Church entitled to vote in certain elections.
Every vocal of the chapter received a written ballot for the election of the prior.
A brother who had not yet taken his final vows was not counted among the vocals.
Note
In the old language of religious communities, to vote was to have a voice, and the name follows from Latin vōx. The word belongs to the rules and records of orders and chapters and appears mostly in the plural. There it separates the vocals, who are entitled to vote in an election, from the members who are not. Outside that setting readers will take it for the singing noun, so explain it on first use.
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Origin
Late Middle English vocal was borrowed from Latin vōcālis ("uttering a voice, sounding, speaking"), from vōx ("a voice, sound, tone") plus the adjectival suffix -ālis. It is a doublet of vowel.