Gram. and Phonology. Pl. tenues. [L., = thin, slender, fine: used in Craston’s Latin version of Lascaris’s Greek Grammar 1480, and in other early Greek grammars, to translate Gr. φιλόν ‘bare, smooth,’ applied by Aristotle to the consonants κ, τ, π (for which Priscian’s term was lēvis smooth), as opposed to the aspiratæ or aspirates (in Gr. δασέα, pl. of δασύ rough, thick).]
One of the Greek letters κ, τ, π, or the corresponding k, t, p of Latin, English, and other languages; esp. the sounds represented by these; also called surds, hard mutes, and by Bell breath stops.
[1480. Craston, Lascaris Erotemata, a iij. Mutæ … quarum tenues quidem tres, cappa, pi, taf.]
1650. E. Reeve, Introd. Gk. Tongue, 38. The Tenuis consonant … is changed into his aspirate: ἀφ’ ῆμῶν for ἀπὸ ἡμῶν.
1841. [see MEDIA 1].
1842. Proc. Philol. Soc., I. 7. When the final letter of the verb was one of the tenues … t was substituted.
1887. Max Müller, in Fortn. Rev., May, 705. The tenuis becomes aspirate in Low-German.
