| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| phoneme |
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| SYLLABICATION: | pho·neme |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  f  n m |
| NOUN: | The smallest phonetic unit in a language that is capable of conveying a distinction in meaning, as the m of mat and the b of bat in English. | | ETYMOLOGY: | French phonème, from Greek phnma, phnmat-, utterance, sound produced, from phnein, to produce a sound, from phn, sound, voice. See bh -2 in Appendix I.
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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