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An affricate is a complex speech sound that begins as a stop consonant and ends as a fricative consonant. In producing an affricate, the airflow is momentarily blocked, then released with friction. This combination of a complete stop followed by a turbulent, noisy release is characteristic of this class of consonants. Examples of affricates are common in many languages, including English.

In English, the two primary affricates are often represented by the spellings "ch" as in "church" and "j" or "dg" as in "judge." The sound in "church" is a voiceless postalveolar affricate, meaning the vocal cords do not vibrate during its production, and the place of articulation is just behind the alveolar ridge. The sound in "judge" is a voiced postalveolar affricate, where the vocal cords do vibrate.

Affricates are distinct from simple stops (like 'p' or 't') and simple fricatives (like 'f' or 's') because they involve a more complex articulation. The rapid transition from the stop to the fricative component is key to identifying an affricate. Phonetically, affricates are often transcribed using a ligature, which combines the symbols for the stop and the fricative components, or by a superscript fricative symbol following the stop symbol. Their presence and form vary significantly across the world's languages.