phoneme
|pho-neme|
🇺🇸
/ˈfoʊ.niːm/
🇬🇧
/ˈfəʊ.niːm/
distinctive sound unit
Etymology
'phoneme' originates from Greek, specifically the word 'phōnē', where 'phōnē' meant 'sound, voice', with the suffix '-eme' coming via French/Greek linguistic usage to form terms like 'phonème'.
'phoneme' entered modern linguistics via French 'phonème' in the late 19th century (used by linguists such as Jan Baudouin de Courtenay and others) and was adopted into English as 'phoneme'.
Initially referring generally to 'sound' or 'voice', the term evolved into a technical linguistic term meaning the minimal distinctive unit of sound in a language.
Meanings by Part of Speech
Noun 1
the smallest distinctive unit of sound in a language that can distinguish one word from another (an abstract category of sound).
In English, /p/ and /b/ are different phonemes because pat and bat have different meanings.
Synonyms
Noun 2
an abstract class of speech sounds (phones) that a particular language treats as equivalent for distinguishing meaning.
Different pronunciations (phones) may belong to the same phoneme in a given language.
Synonyms
Last updated: 2025/09/20 09:54