入声

noun

entering tone; checked tone (the fourth tone in Middle Chinese, characterized by a short, abrupt pronunciation with a final stop consonant [-p, -t, -k] in earlier forms)

Standard Mandarin Chinese has lost the entering tone; characters that formerly had this tone are now distributed among the four modern tones (level, rising, departing). Some dialects (e.g., Cantonese, Hakka, Southern Min) still preserve the entering tone with its characteristic short, checked quality.