phoneme

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pho·neme

(fō′nēm′)

The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning, as the m of mat and the b of bat in English.

[French phonème, from Greek phōnēma, phōnēmat-, utterance, sound produced, from phōnein, to produce a sound, from phōnē, sound, voice; see bhā- in Indo-European roots.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

phoneme

(ˈfəʊniːm)

(Linguistics) linguistics one of the set of speech sounds in any given language that serve to distinguish one word from another. A phoneme may consist of several phonetically distinct articulations, which are regarded as identical by native speakers, since one articulation may be substituted for another without any change of meaning. Thus /p/ and /b/ are separate phonemes in English because they distinguish such words as pet and bet, whereas the light and dark /l/ sounds in little are not separate phonemes since they may be transposed without changing meaning

[C20: via French from Greek phōnēma sound, speech]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

pho•neme

(ˈfoʊ nim)

n.

any of the minimal units of speech sound in a language that can serve to distinguish one word from another: The (p) of pit and the (b) of bit are considered two different phonemes, while the unaspirated (p) of spin and the aspirated (p) of pin are not. Compare allophone.

[1890–95; < French phonème < Greek phṓnēma sound <phōneîn to make a sound (derivative of phonḗ sound, voice)]

phoneme

- A word for a hallucination in which voices are heard.

phoneme

Any of the speech sounds in a language that convey a difference in meaning.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun

phoneme - (linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language

linguistics - the scientific study of language

speech sound, phone, sound - (phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language

allophone - (linguistics) any of various acoustically different forms of the same phoneme

Translations

Spanish / Español

Select a language:

fonema

phoneme

[ˈfəʊniːm] N → fonema m

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

References in periodicals archive ?

Deep Vellum, a translation publisher based in Dallas, US, is is expanding into publishing works originally written in English and has acquired the backlists of two separate independent publishing houses, Phoneme Media of Los Angeles and A Strange Object of Austin, book trade news company Publishers Weekly revealed on Tuesday.

Deep Vellum acquires backlist of Phoneme Media of Los Angeles and A Strange Object of Austin

Al-Saleh explained that her artwork consists of audio and video that revolves around the concept of deconstructing spoken language to its most basic form -- the phoneme (or "sawtam" in Arabic).

Dania Al-Saleh and Lulwah Al-Homoud represent Saudi Arabia at exhibition in Russia

I had a chart and words prepared and we sorted the words according to the phoneme represented by <t>.

An afternoon teaching phonology to Prep M

While earlier Sanskrit poeticians typically analyzed poetry to the level of the word or utterance, the Andhra poeticians developed rubrics for analyzing the metaphysical properties of poetic language's basic components--the phoneme (Sanskrit varna) and the metreme (Sanskrit gana).

Authority and Auspiciousness in Gaurana's Laksanadipika

In the phoneme synthesis task, the BG children scored a higher average than did the children in the other group.

A comparative study on phonological acquisition and performance in phonological awareness by children exposed to a bilingual or monolingual family environment

It contains exercises and study questions for each phoneme, as well as phoneme descriptions detailing the place, manner, and listing of distinctive features; vocal fold and velopharyngeal port position; tongue position and how the phoneme is produced; variations in spelling; word position in Standard American English; and clinical information.

Functional Phonetics Workbook, 3rd Edition (CD's and online access included)

24 different sets of phoneme experiments were established and carried out using DIGITS30 corpora.

Advanced Recognition of Lithuanian Digit Names Using Hybrid Approach

An innovative test of "phoneme pairs" proved efficacious in discriminating between the poetic corpora of Livingston and Moore (Jackson, Who Wrote 49-63).

Style and Authorship in a Classic of Popular Culture: Henry Livingston and "The Night Before Christmas"

Salt Lake City, UT, May 15, 2017 --(PR.com)-- The California-based edtech publisher Colvard Learning (CL) is offering its early literacy software programs—Pup's Quest for Phonics[R] and Professor Pup's Phoneme Farm[R]—to any Utah school wishing to try out CL apps through the end of this year.

Edtech Publisher Colvard Learning Offers Free Early-Literacy Apps to Utah Schools

In such contexts, one sort of confusion is created, as the listener cannot judge the proper location of phonemes. Some features are long in duration as compared to others.11 As a result the phoneme that is adjacent to a phoneme that bears elongated feature, changes its place and sometimes a non-local change takes place.