PHONEME

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does phoneme mean? 

• PHONEME (noun)
  The noun PHONEME has 1 sense:

1. (linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language

  Familiarity information: PHONEME used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PHONEME (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(linguistics) one of a small set of speech sounds that are distinguished by the speakers of a particular language

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("phoneme" is a kind of...):

phone; sound; speech sound ((phonetics) an individual sound unit of speech without concern as to whether or not it is a phoneme of some language)

Domain category:

linguistics (the scientific study of language)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "phoneme"):

allophone ((linguistics) any of various acoustically different forms of the same phoneme)

Derivation:

phonemic (of or relating to phonemes of a particular language)