[pruh-nuhn-see-ey-shuhn] Pronunciation Key | 1. | the act or result of producing the sounds of speech, including articulation, stress, and intonation, often with reference to some standard of correctness or acceptability. |
| 2. | an accepted standard of the sound and stress patterns of a syllable, word, etc.: He said the pronunciation of “curl” is
[kurl] Pronunciation Key, not
[koil] Pronunciation Key. |
| 3. | the conventional patterns of treatment of the sounds of a language: the pronunciation of French. |
| 4. | a phonetic transcription of a given word, sound, etc.: The pronunciation of “pheasant” is [fez-uhnt] Pronunciation Key. |
] —Related forms
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.
| pro·nun·ci·a·tion
(prə-nŭn'sē-ā'shən) Pronunciation Key
n.
[Middle English, from Old French prononciation, from Latin prōnūntiātiō, prōnūntiātiōn-, from prōnūntiātus, past participle of prōnūntiāre, to pronounce; see pronounce.] pro·nun'ci·a'tion·al adj. |
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2006 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
pronunciation
| pronunciation | |
noun | |
| 1. | the manner in which someone utters a word; "they are always correcting my pronunciation" |
| 2. | the way a word or a language is customarily spoken; "the pronunciation of Chinese is difficult for foreigners"; "that is the correct pronunciation" |
Pronunciation
In this dictionary slashes (/../) bracket phonetic pronunciations of words not found in a standard English dictionary. The notation, and many of the pronunciations, were adapted from the Hacker's Jargon File.
Syllables are separated by dash or followed single quote or back quote. Single quote means the preceding syllable is stressed (louder), back quote follows a syllable with intermediate stress (slightly louder), otherwise all syllables are equally stressed.
Consonants are pronounced as in English but note:
ch soft, as in "church" g hard, as in "got" gh aspirated g+h of "bughouse" or "ragheap" j voiced, as in "judge" kh guttural of "loch" or "l'chaim" s unvoiced, as in "pass" zh as "s" in "pleasure"
Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; thus (for example) /H-L-L/ is equivalent to /aych el el/. /Z/ is pronounced /zee/ in the US and /zed/ in the UK (elsewhere?).
Vowels are represented as follows:
a back, that ah father, palm (see note) ar far, mark aw flaw, caught ay bake, rain e less, men ee easy, ski eir their, software i trip, hit i: life, sky o block, stock (see note) oh flow, sew oo loot, through or more, door ow out, how oy boy, coin uh but, some u put, foot *r fur, insert (only in stressed syllables; otherwise use just "r") y yet, young yoo few, chew [y]oo /oo/ with optional fronting as in `news' (/nooz/ or /nyooz/)
A /*/ is used for the `schwa' sound of unstressed or occluded vowels (often written with an upside-down `e'). The schwa vowel is omitted in unstressed syllables containing vocalic l, m, n or r; that is, "kitten" and "colour" would be rendered /kit'n/ and /kuhl'r/, not /kit'*n/ and /kuhl'*r/.
The above table reflects mainly distinctions found in standard American English (that is, the neutral dialect spoken by TV network announcers and typical of educated speech in the Upper Midwest, Chicago, Minneapolis/St.Paul and Philadelphia). However, we separate /o/ from /ah/, which tend to merge in standard American. This may help readers accustomed to accents resembling British Received Pronunciation.
Entries with a pronunciation of `//' are written-only.
(1997-12-10)
Pronunciation
Pro*nun`ci*a"tion\ (?; 277), n. [F. pronunciation, L. pronunciatio. See Pronounce.]1. The act of uttering with articulation; the act of giving the proper sound and accent; utterance; as, the pronunciation of syllables of words; distinct or indistinct pronunciation. 2. The mode of uttering words or sentences. 3. (Rhet.) The art of manner of uttering a discourse publicly with propriety and gracefulness; -- now called delivery. --J. Q. Adams.
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