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SYLLABLE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A unit of spoken language larger than a phoneme
Example:
the word 'pocket' has two syllables
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("syllable" is a kind of...):
language unit; linguistic unit (one of the natural units into which linguistic messages can be analyzed)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "syllable"):
ultima (the last syllable in a word)
penult; penultima; penultimate (the next to last syllable in a word)
antepenult; antepenultima; antepenultimate (the 3rd syllable of a word counting back from the end)
reduplication (the syllable added in a reduplicated word form)
solfa syllable (one of the names for notes of a musical scale in solmization)
Holonyms ("syllable" is a part of...):
word (a unit of language that native speakers can identify)
Derivation:
syllabic (consisting of a syllable or syllables)
syllabic (of or relating to syllables)
syllabicate; syllabify (divide into syllables)
syllabize (utter with distinct articulation of each syllable)
syllabize (divide into syllables)
Context examples:
His imperial majesty spoke often to me, and I returned answers: but neither of us could understand a syllable.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
She could do justice to the superiority of Lady Russell's motives in this, over those of her father and Elizabeth; she could honour all the better feelings of her calmness; but the general air of oblivion among them was highly important from whatever it sprung; and in the event of Admiral Croft's really taking Kellynch Hall, she rejoiced anew over the conviction which had always been most grateful to her, of the past being known to those three only among her connexions, by whom no syllable, she believed, would ever be whispered, and in the trust that among his, the brother only with whom he had been residing, had received any information of their short-lived engagement.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
There was something indescribably nerve-shaking and menacing in that constant mutter, which seemed to shape itself into the very syllables of the half-breed, endlessly repeated, We will kill you if we can. We will kill you if we can.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another syllable of communication could rest with him.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
You have not exchanged a syllable with one of them?
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Not a look or an offer of help had Fanny given; not a syllable for or against.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I have not wanted syllables where actions have spoken so plainly.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Its effect was most extraordinary; for on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable.
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
I began one note, in a six-syllable line, “Oh, do not remember”—but that associated itself with the fifth of November, and became an absurdity.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
When the people observed I was quiet, they discharged no more arrows; but, by the noise I heard, I knew their numbers increased; and about four yards from me, over against my right ear, I heard a knocking for above an hour, like that of people at work; when turning my head that way, as well as the pegs and strings would permit me, I saw a stage erected about a foot and a half from the ground, capable of holding four of the inhabitants, with two or three ladders to mount it: from whence one of them, who seemed to be a person of quality, made me a long speech, whereof I understood not one syllable.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
