phoneme
noun/ˈfəʊniːm/
/ˈfəʊniːm/
(phonetics)- any one of the set of smallest units of speech in a language that make the difference between one word and another. In English, the /s/ sound in sip and the /z/ sound in zip represent two different phonemes. compare graphemeTopics Languagec2Word Originlate 19th cent.: from French phonème, from Greek phōnēma ‘sound, speech’, from phōnein ‘speak’.
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phoneme