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allophone

[ al-uh-fohn ]

noun

, Phonetics.
  1. any of the members of a class of speech sounds that, taken together, are commonly felt to be a phoneme, as the t- sounds of toe, stow, tree, hatpin, catcall, cats, catnip, button, metal, city; a speech sound constituting one of the phonetic manifestations or variants of a particular phoneme.


allophone

/ ˌæləˈfɒnɪk; ˈæləˌfəʊn /

noun

  1. any of several speech sounds that are regarded as contextual or environmental variants of the same phoneme. In English the aspirated initial (p) in pot and the unaspirated (p) in spot are allophones of the phoneme /p/
  2. a Canadian whose native language is neither French nor English
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Derived Forms

  • allophonic, adjective
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Other Words From

  • al·lo·phon·ic [al-, uh, -, fon, -ik], adjective
  • allo·phoni·cal·ly adverb
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Word History and Origins

Origin of allophone1

First recorded in 1930–35; allo- + phone 2
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Compare Meanings

How does allophone compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

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allophaneallophylian