A voiceless labial–velar fricative, or more accurately a voiceless labialized velar fricative and sometimes analyzed as a voiceless labial–velar approximant, is a type of consonantal sound, used in spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨xʷ⟩ or, rather ambiguously, ⟨ʍ⟩. The letter ⟨ʍ⟩ was defined as a "voiceless " until 1979, when it was defined as a fricative with the place of articulation of the same way that is an approximant with the place of articulation of. The IPA Handbook describes ⟨ʍ⟩ as a "fricative" in the introduction, while a chapter within characterizes it as an "approximant".