a. (and sb.) Also 9 erron. vellar. [ad. It. velare, F. vélaire, or L. vēlār-is, f. L. vēlum sail, curtain, etc.: cf. VELUM.]
1. Arch. (See quots.)
1726. Leoni, trans. Alberti’s Archit., I. 55/1. A Vault … which for its resemblance to a swelling Sail, we … call a Velar Cupola.
1823. P. Nicholson, Pract. Build., 595. Vellar cupola, a cupola or dome, terminated by four or more walls.
1842. Gwilt, Archit., 1050.
2. Phon. Of sounds: Produced by means of the soft palate.
Applied specifically to one of the two sets of guttural sounds existing in the original Indo-European language.
1876. Academy, 4 Nov., 457/1. The author begins with the now well-known distinction of the k sounds into two sets, which he calls velar and palatal.
1883. I. Taylor, Alphabet, I. 160. The Semitic alphabets … have no symbols for certain classes of sounds, such as the velar gutturals.
1888. King & Cookson, Sounds & Infl., vi. 117. According to place of articulation they can be divided into labial, dental, palatal, and velar sounds.
b. As sb. A velar guttural.
1886. T. Le M. Douse, Introd. Gothic, 37. The guttural element of a velar may vanish. Ibid. The velars themselves may be palatalized.
1888. King & Cookson, Sounds & Infl., vi. 118. The distinction between palatals and velars is comparatively recent and of great importance in the history of modern philology.
3. Zool. Of or pertaining to a velum.
1878. F. J. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Comp. Anat., 328. The cilia in the velar circlet are those that are most markedly developed.
1880. Nature, XXII. 147/2. Velar centrifugal canals … are peculiar to this genus.
1883. Encycl. Brit., XVI. 663/1. The post-oral hemisphere of the Trochosphere grows more rapidly than the anterior or velar area.
