The voiceless labialized velar (labiovelar) approximant (traditionally called a voiceless labiovelar fricative) is a type of consonantal sound, used in spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʍ⟩ (a rotated lowercase letter ⟨w⟩) or ⟨w̥⟩.
[ʍ] is generally called a "fricative" for historical reasons, but in English, the language for which the letter ⟨ʍ⟩ is primarily used, it is a voiceless approximant, equivalent to [w̥] or [hw̥]. The symbol is rarely appropriated for a labialized voiceless velar fricative, [xʷ], in other languages.
