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syllable
[ sil-uh-buhl ]
noun
- an uninterrupted segment of speech consisting of a vowel sound, a diphthong, or a syllabic consonant, with or without preceding or following consonant sounds:
“Eye,” “sty,” “act,” and “should” are English words of one syllable. “Eyelet,” “stifle,” “enact,” and “shouldn't” are two-syllable words.
- one or more written letters or characters representing more or less exactly such an element of speech.
- the slightest portion or amount of speech or writing; the least mention:
Do not breathe a syllable of all this.
verb (used with object)
- to utter in syllables; articulate.
- to represent by syllables.
verb (used without object)
- to utter syllables; speak.
syllable
/ ˈsɪləbəl /
noun
- (in the writing systems of certain languages, esp ancient ones) a symbol or set of symbols standing for a syllable
- the least mention in speech or print
don't breathe a syllable of it
- in words of one syllablesimply; bluntly
verb
- to pronounce syllables of (a text); articulate
- tr to write down in syllables
Grammar Note
Other Words From
- half-sylla·bled adjective
- un·sylla·bled adjective
Word History and Origins
Word History and Origins
Origin of syllable1
Idioms and Phrases
see words of one syllable .Example Sentences
“Massachusetts,” my 4-year-old said, articulating every syllable as we crossed the state line.
Compared with some songbirds, “this ability to produce adultlike syllables seems to happen much quicker in bats,” she says, noting an abrupt rise in the number of adultlike syllables early in babbling.
It’s fun to see people, looking up, counting the syllables, Pisarra said.
His videos typically began selfie-style, with an enthusiastic “Good morning, TikTok family,” Doubman stretching out the greeting’s syllables before revealing the day’s landscape.
Coe delivered each line with a twang-less, overpronounced clarity, as if he were being paid by the syllable.
The extending out of one syllable is a great songwriting device.
The tone of this syllable swooped up briefly, and then down.
Forty thousand people were on their feet singing his name in a two-syllable mantra.
At the first syllable Obama uttered in its favor, the Republicans practically to a person would oppose it.
Things that sound almost like words but are just a syllable or two off.
Allcraft winced, as every syllable made known the speaker's actual strength—his own dependence and utter weakness.
He placed the paper on the table, and, ere he read a syllable, he laboured to compose himself.
He spoke with an animation and earnestness that gave an exaggerated importance to every syllable he uttered.
In some English schools the first syllable in “panis” sounds “pan,” in others “pain.”
David had replied, in that short tone of self-sufficiency which conveys so much more than the syllable would seem to warrant.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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