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Meaning of "phoneme" in the English dictionary

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DICTIONARY
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ETYMOLOGY OF THE WORD PHONEME

Via French from Greek phōnēma sound, speech.
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Etymology is the study of the origin of words and their changes in structure and significance.
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PRONUNCIATION OF PHONEME

phoneme  [ˈfəʊniːm] play
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GRAMMATICAL CATEGORY OF PHONEME

noun
adjective
verb
adverb
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
determiner
exclamation
Phoneme is a noun.
A noun is a type of word the meaning of which determines reality. Nouns provide the names for all things: people, objects, sensations, feelings, etc.

WHAT DOES PHONEME MEAN IN ENGLISH?

Phoneme

A phoneme is a basic unit of a language's phonology, which is combined with other phonemes to form meaningful units such as words or morphemes. The phoneme can be described as "The smallest contrastive linguistic unit which may bring about a change of meaning". In this way the difference in meaning between the English words kill and kiss is a result of the exchange of the phoneme /l/ for the phoneme /s/. Two words that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form a minimal pair. Within linguistics there are differing views as to exactly what phonemes are and how a given language should be analyzed in phonemic terms. However, a phoneme is generally regarded as an abstraction of a set of speech sounds which are perceived as equivalent to each other in a given language. For example, in English, the "k" sounds in the words kit and skill are not identical, but they are distributional variants of a single phoneme /k/. Different speech sounds that are realizations of the same phoneme are known as allophones.

Definition of phoneme in the English dictionary

The definition of phoneme in the dictionary is 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.

WORDS THAT RHYME WITH PHONEME


archiphoneme
ˈɑːkɪˌfəʊniːm
axoneme
ˈæksəˌniːm
beam
biːm
cream
kriːm
dream
driːm
extreme
ɪkˈstriːm
hazanim
xaˈzaniːm
meme
miːm
moneme
ˈməʊniːm
morphophoneme
ˌmɔːfəʊˈfəʊniːm
neem
niːm
scheme
skiːm
seem
siːm
steam
stiːm
stream
striːm
supreme
sʊˈpriːm
team
tiːm
theme
θiːm
toneme
ˈtəʊniːm
treponeme
ˈtrɛpəniːm

WORDS THAT BEGIN LIKE PHONEME

phone sex
phone tap
phone tapping
phone-in
phone-jack
phone-jacker
phonecam
phonecard
phonematic
phonematically
phonemic
phonemically
phonemicisation
phonemicise
phonemicist
phonemicization
phonemicize
phonemics
phonendoscope
phoner

WORDS THAT END LIKE PHONEME

academe
bireme
bonus scheme
breme
careme
color scheme
colour scheme
deme
feme
grapheme
heme
housing scheme
incentive scheme
insurance scheme
mneme
morpheme
pension scheme
pilot scheme
queme
seme

Synonyms and antonyms of phoneme in the English dictionary of synonyms

SYNONYMS

Translation of «phoneme» into 25 languages

TRANSLATOR
online translator

TRANSLATION OF PHONEME

Find out the translation of phoneme to 25 languages with our English multilingual translator.
The translations of phoneme from English to other languages presented in this section have been obtained through automatic statistical translation; where the essential translation unit is the word «phoneme» in English.

Translator English - Chinese

音素
1,325 millions of speakers

Translator English - Spanish

fonema
570 millions of speakers

English

phoneme
510 millions of speakers

Translator English - Hindi

स्वनिम
380 millions of speakers
ar

Translator English - Arabic

صوتة
280 millions of speakers

Translator English - Russian

фонема
278 millions of speakers

Translator English - Portuguese

fonema
270 millions of speakers

Translator English - Bengali

নির্দিষ্ট কোনো ভাষার যে ধ্বনিগুচ্ছকে একই ধ্বনির বিভিন্ন রূপ বলিয়া মনে হয়
260 millions of speakers

Translator English - French

phonème
220 millions of speakers

Translator English - Malay

Fonem
190 millions of speakers

Translator English - German

Phonem
180 millions of speakers

Translator English - Japanese

音素
130 millions of speakers

Translator English - Korean

음소
85 millions of speakers

Translator English - Javanese

Phoneme
85 millions of speakers
vi

Translator English - Vietnamese

đơn âm
80 millions of speakers

Translator English - Tamil

ஒலியன்
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Marathi

ध्वनीलेखन
75 millions of speakers

Translator English - Turkish

fonem
70 millions of speakers

Translator English - Italian

fonema
65 millions of speakers

Translator English - Polish

fonem
50 millions of speakers

Translator English - Ukrainian

фонема
40 millions of speakers

Translator English - Romanian

fonem
30 millions of speakers
el

Translator English - Greek

φωνήματος
15 millions of speakers
af

Translator English - Afrikaans

foneem
14 millions of speakers
sv

Translator English - Swedish

fonem
10 millions of speakers
no

Translator English - Norwegian

fonem
5 millions of speakers

Trends of use of phoneme

TRENDS

TENDENCIES OF USE OF THE TERM «PHONEME»

The term «phoneme» is regularly used and occupies the 89.809 position in our list of most widely used terms in the English dictionary.
0
100%
FREQUENCY
Regularly used
58
/100
The map shown above gives the frequency of use of the term «phoneme» in the different countries.
Principal search tendencies and common uses of phoneme
List of principal searches undertaken by users to access our English online dictionary and most widely used expressions with the word «phoneme».

FREQUENCY OF USE OF THE TERM «PHONEME» OVER TIME

The graph expresses the annual evolution of the frequency of use of the word «phoneme» during the past 500 years. Its implementation is based on analysing how often the term «phoneme» appears in digitalised printed sources in English between the year 1500 and the present day.

Examples of use in the English literature, quotes and news about phoneme

EXAMPLES

10 ENGLISH BOOKS RELATING TO «PHONEME»

Discover the use of phoneme in the following bibliographical selection. Books relating to phoneme and brief extracts from same to provide context of its use in English literature.
1
Hierarchical Neural Network Structures for Phoneme Recognition
6.2.2 Phoneme Communication System In this section, the phoneme communication system is evaluated by using the linearity of SLP2 as a matched filter, as described in Section 6.1. The transmit phoneme sequence q(t) is obtained based on ...
Daniel Vasquez, Rainer Gruhn, Wolfgang Minker, 2012
2
Readings in Linguistics I & II
Before taking up the next two terms, it will be well to examine a later definition of a phoneme given by Jones: 'Definition of a phoneme: a family of sounds in a given language which are related in character and are such that no one of them ever ...
Eric P. Hamp, 1995
3
Developing Speech and Language Skills: Phoneme Factory
This book is part of the Phoneme Factory Project undertaken by Granada Learning in partnership with the Speech and Language Therapy Research Unit (SLTRU) in Bristol.
Gwen Lancaster, 2007
4
Reading Assessment and Instruction for All Learners
One widely used informal assessment of phonological awareness is the Yopp– Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test (Yopp, 1995; see Form 4.3). A second measure that can be used for ongoing monitoring of student progress in learning  ...
Jeanne Shay Schumm, 2006
5
Phonological Awareness: From Research to Practice
Phoneme (or Phonemic) Awareness A third way that a word can be broken down into smaller parts is by using the individual sound or phoneme level. A “phoneme ” is defined as the smallest unit of sound that influences the meaning of a word.
Gail T. Gillon, 2004
6
Reading Acquisition Processes
Experiment 6 (Thompson, Fletcher-Flinn & Cottrell, 1991) was conducted to further examine discrepancies between knowledge of phoneme-to-letter correspondences and parallel letter-phoneme correspondences. The motivation was to ...
George Brian Thompson, William E. Tunmer, Tom Nicholson, 1993
7
Aphasia and Its Therapy
Gropheme-to-phoneme conversion. Reading of novel words cannot be carried out via the lexical route because novel words cannot be recognized as words; it can only be carried out by applying the specific rules that permit the conversion of  ...
Anna Basso Associate Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology University of Milan, 2003
8
Encyclopedia of Special Education
In contrast, the /s/ phoneme may not emerge until a child is 8 years of age or older. Numerous studies, including one by Sander (1972), have examined the age of emergence of various phonemes. All children have articulation errors when they ...
Cecil R. Reynolds, Elaine Fletcher-Janzen, 2007
9
English Phonetics and Phonology Paperback with Audio CDs ...
The concept of the phoneme was introduced in Chapter 5, and a few theoretical problems connected with phonemic analysis have been mentioned in other chapters. The general assumption (as in most phonetics books) has been that speech ...
Peter Roach, 2009
10
An Introduction to Language
The inventory can also change through the addition of phonemes. Old English did not have the phoneme /ʒ/ of leisure [liʒər]. Through a process of palatalization—a change in place of articulation to the palatal region—certain occurrences of ...
Victoria Fromkin, Robert Rodman, Nina Hyams, 2010

10 NEWS ITEMS WHICH INCLUDE THE TERM «PHONEME»

Find out what the national and international press are talking about and how the term phoneme is used in the context of the following news items.
1
Learning a new language can increase the size of your brain
... Japanese speakers have trouble distinguishing between the sounds "r" and "l" because the two represent a single phoneme (sound unit) in ... «The News Hub, Jul 15»
2
Meddling with the Maltese language
... Netherlands and Netherlandiż for il-Pajjiżi il-Baxxi and Nederlandiż, using the English phoneme “th” although this does not exist in Maltese. «Times of Malta, Jul 15»
3
The world's smallest language has only 100 words -- and you can …
Tweak a single phoneme and arrive at a strange new variation of a thought. Tweak by tweak, a speaker could wander forever through an ... «Business Insider Australia, Jul 15»
4
Australian Babblers Use Human Language's Key Element …
The phoneme structuring that the pied babblers made might be a simple one, but what excites the scientists is that this could help them to ... «Day News, Jul 15»
5
Vocal Control in Selective Mutism: A Promising New Approach
... Linklater's technique of freeing the natural voice, I learned to compensate for my vocal tension by producing the voiceless velar phoneme /k/. «Huffington Post, Jul 15»
6
Grand Rapids students, teachers each learn in intense summer …
... letter corresponding to each phoneme heard. Teachers Leah Stamps and Juanita Toronto inspected the Campus Elementary students sound ... «MLive.com, Jul 15»
7
Traditional 'Surgeon' Who Treated Kenyatta Marks 60 Years of Service
... permanent change in the voice. After getting it removed, the person finds difficulty in verbalizing words that have uvular 'r' phoneme in them. «AllAfrica.com, Jul 15»
8
YANKS ABROAD LOCKER ROOM
On one extreme, they don't change how they speak one phoneme toward the locals that they're around all day, every day. On the other extreme ... «Yanks Abroad, Jul 15»
9
Silence, please. This is an airport
In an attempt to ensure that announcements are easier to understand, Amsterdam-based AviaVox has developed phoneme technology. «CNN, Jul 15»
10
How Phonics is Taught Can Affect How Well a Child Learns To Read
For one script, learners were asked to link each embedded letter to a sound within the word (known as a "grapheme-phoneme mapping" in ... «T.H.E. Journal, Jul 15»

REFERENCE
« EDUCALINGO. Phoneme [online]. Available <https://educalingo.com/en/dic-en/phoneme>. May 2024 ».
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