High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! A sibilant is a type of fricative or affricate consonant, made by directing a jet of air through a narrow channel in the vocal tract towards the sharp edge of the teeth. Strident refers to the perceptual intensity of the sound of a sibilant consonant. A strident sound could be described as harsh, insistent, and discordant. In phonetics and acoustics the term sibilant is also used to describe the articulatory or aerodynamic mechanisms that produce strident noise.