[fawr-muh
nt] 
| 1. | Music. the range and number of partials present in a tone of a specific instrument, representing its timbre. |
| 2. | Acoustic Phonetics. one of the regions of concentration of energy, prominent on a sound spectrogram, that collectively constitute the frequency spectrum of a speech sound. The relative positioning of the first and second formants, whether periodic or aperiodic, as of the o of hope at approximately 500 and 900 cycles per second, is usually sufficient to distinguish a sound from all others. |
| for·mant (fôr'mənt) n. Any of several frequency regions of relatively great intensity in a sound spectrum, which together determine the characteristic quality of a vowel sound. [German, from Latin fōrmāns, fōrmant-, present participle of fōrmāre, to form, from fōrma, form.] |