lenited

Lenited is the past participle adjective form of lenite, describing a consonant that has undergone lenition, a phonological process in which sounds are softened or weakened. A lenited consonant typically becomes less abrupt and may shift toward a more sonorous, fricative, or approximant articulation. The term is used in linguistic description to indicate that a sound or a word has been affected by this mutation.

Lenition is especially prominent in Insular Celtic languages, such as Irish and Scottish Gaelic, where it is a productive consonant mutation triggered by grammatical context, including certain particles and definite articles. In written form, lenition is commonly signaled by orthographic changes: for example, initial consonants may take forms like bh, mh, ch, dh, or th, with pronunciation that ranges from fricative to voiced or approximant realizations depending on the language and context. The lenited form often carries distinct grammatical or semantic implications within the language’s morphology.

The concept also appears in Welsh, where a related system of soft mutations affects consonants, and in studies of historical phonology as an example of consonant mutation in language change. While lenition is most closely associated with Celtic languages, the general idea—consonants becoming weaker in certain phonological environments—appears in various languages and linguistic theories under different names or descriptions.

In linguistic usage, lenited describes either the resulting phonetic form or a word that has undergone the lenition process, and is contrasted with non-lenited forms and other types of consonant mutation.