1. to pronounce a sound with the tongue touching or near the hard palate
Usage: linguistics; phonetics
2. to change a sound so that it is pronounced with the tongue touching or near the hard palate
Usage: linguistics; phonetics

Examples

• The /k/ sound becomes palatalized before front vowels in some languages.
• Russian speakers palatalize certain consonants when they appear before soft vowels.
• The linguist explained how to palatalize the consonant in that word.
• Children learning the language often palatalize sounds incorrectly at first.
• The dialect tends to palatalize consonants more than the standard variety.
• She practiced how to palatalize the difficult sounds in the foreign language.