Added 9 October 2026
phoneme
/ˈfəʊ.niːm/ noun
In Latin: phōnēma Wiktionary
noun Definition from WordNet 3.1, Princeton University. Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about phoneme at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
- (linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language.
Origin
From Ancient Greek φώνημα (phṓnēma, “sound”), from φωνέω (phōnéō, “to sound”), from φωνή (phōnḗ, “sound”). By surface analysis, phone (“speech sound”) + -eme (“unit”).
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)