pronunciation

(prə-nŭn'sē-ā'shən)
n.

1. The act or manner of pronouncing words; utterance of speech.
2. A way of speaking a word, especially a way that is accepted or generally understood.
3. A graphic representation of the way a word is spoken, using phonetic symbols.

[Middle English, from Old French prononciation, from Latin prōnūntiātiō, prōnūntiātiōn-, from prōnūntiātus, past participle of prōnūntiāre, to pronounce. See pronounce.]

pronunciational pro·nun'ci·a'tion·al adj.

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1. Note that the correct spelling of this word is pronunciation, not pronounciation, and it is pronounced accordingly.

2. The British pronunciations given in this book follow the so-called 'received standard' based on the forms used by educated speakers in southern England, although it is recognized that other forms of pronunciation are equally valid. American pronunciations, when given, follow the pattern identified as 'General American', i. e. 'the range of United States accents that have neither an eastern nor a southern colouring' (J. C. Wells, Accents of English (1982) Vol. I, p.10).

3. For disputed or controversial aspects of pronunciation (many to do with the placing of the main stress), see the entries at apartheid, contribute, centrifugal, controversy, decade, despicable, distribute, forehead, formidable, harass, kilometer, municipal, privacy, subsidence. See also accent, noun and verb differences.

4. Significant systematic changes in pronunciation that have occurred in the last fifty years or so include (under American English influence) the placing of the stress in adverbs ending in -arily on the -ar- instead of earlier in the word (as in necessarily, primarily, etc.), the simplification of the final syllable of nouns in -ein and -ies (e.g. protein, rabies, scabies) to a single sound (-een and -eez instead of -ee-in and -i-eez as formerly), a tendency to first-syllable stress in words such as research, dispute, and contribute, and a change from -ee-i-ti to -ay-i-ti in words of the type deity, homogeneity, spontaneity, etc.

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IN BRIEF: The way a word or a language is customarily spoken.

Many words in the English language have more than one correct pronunciation.

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For a list of words related to pronunciation, see:

• Phonetics - pronunciation: act or manner of producing speech sounds; accepted way in which a word, syllable, or letter is sounded in a given language; phonetic transcription of word

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Common misspelling(s) of pronunciation

• pronounciation

Dansk (Danish)
n. - udtale

Nederlands (Dutch)
uitspraak

Français (French)
n. - prononciation

Deutsch (German)
n. - Aussprache

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - προφορά, τρόπος προφοράς

Italiano (Italian)
pronuncia

Português (Portuguese)
n. - pronúncia (f)

Русский (Russian)
произношение

Español (Spanish)
n. - pronunciación

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - uttal

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
发音, 读法

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 發音, 讀法

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 발음, 발음하는 법

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 発音, 発音法

idioms:

• Received Pronunciation    容認発音

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نطق الكلمات, لفظ‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮מבטא, הגייה‬

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