speech sound
Americannoun
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any of the set of distinctive sounds of a given language.
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any audible, elemental, acoustic event occurring in speech.
“Go” contains the speech sound “o.”
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any of the sounds of the entire phonetic system of a language.
Etymology
Origin of speech sound
First recorded in 1865–70
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It gives you a hearing number, the softest speech sound you can hear in each ear.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 9, 2026
Finally, children were asked to match words based on whether they began or ended with the same speech sound, a task essential not only to speech development but also to reading acquisition.
From Science Daily • Jan. 3, 2024
Imagine if the film is a musical — what would Mealworm's speech sound like as a musical number?
From Salon • Jun. 9, 2023
The researchers used software to rate the magnitude of the cats’ reactions to a speech sound.
From Scientific American • Dec. 29, 2022
They were able to talk to Billy by means of a computer and a sort of electric organ which made every Earthling speech sound.
From "Slaughterhouse-Five" by Kurt Vonnegut
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.
