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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

phonetic.

Relating to the sounds of spoken language.

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/fəˈnɛt.ɪk/[fəˈnɛɾ.ɪk]Canada, General-American[fəˈneɾ.ɪk]Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Relating to the sounds of spoken language.

    not-comparable
  2. Relating to phones (as opposed to phonemes).

    not-comparable
  3. Relating to the spoken rather than written form of a word or name, as opposed to orthographic.

    not-comparable
    All unfamiliar names have been transcribed in phonetic spelling.
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Latin phōnēticus, from Ancient Greek φωνητῐκός (phōnētĭkós). By surface analysis, phone + -etic.

noun/fəˈnɛt.ɪk/[fəˈnɛɾ.ɪk]Canada, General-American[fəˈneɾ.ɪk]Australia, New-Zealand
  1. In such writing systems as the Chinese writing system, the portion of a phono-semantic character that provides an indication of its pronunciation; contrasted with semantic (which is usually the radical).

Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Latin phōnēticus, from Ancient Greek φωνητῐκός (phōnētĭkós). By surface analysis, phone + -etic.

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phonetic studiophonetic workshello, phonetic

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.