phonetic
- Also pho·net·i·cal. of or relating to speech sounds, their production, or their transcription in written symbols.
- corresponding to pronunciation: phonetic transcription.
- agreeing with pronunciation: phonetic spelling.
- concerning or involving the discrimination of nondistinctive elements of a language. In English, certain phonological features, as length and aspiration, are phonetic but not phonemic.
- (in Chinese writing) a written element that represents a sound and is used in combination with a radical to form a character.
Origin of phonetic
Examples from the Web for phonetically
Contemporary Examples of phonetically
Kanji are a system of Japanese writing using Chinese characters to phonetically represent names.
Historical Examples of phonetically
Various attempts appear to have been made to represent this phonetically.
Diary of Samuel Pepys, CompleteSamuel Pepys
I have not the least idea of their meaning; so I have only been able to render them phonetically.
The Club of Queer TradesG. K. Chesterton
Phonetically spelt, they might lose the last traces of any such story.
All Things ConsideredG. K. Chesterton
Poking a young bird was sufficient to elicit this sound, phonetically a nasal peek.
Again, many of the signs have more than one syllabic value, and they may be used as ideograms as well as phonetically.
Myths & Legends of Babylonia & AssyriaLewis Spence
phonetic
- of or relating to phonetics
- denoting any perceptible distinction between one speech sound and another, irrespective of whether the sounds are phonemes or allophonesCompare phonemic (def. 2)
- conforming to pronunciationphonetic spelling
Word Origin for phonetic
Word Origin and History for phonetically
phonetic
"representing vocal sounds," 1803, from Modern Latin phoneticus (1797), from Greek phonetikos "vocal," from phonetos "to be spoken, utterable," verbal adjective of phonein "to speak clearly, utter," from phone "sound, voice" (see fame (n.)).
phonetic
(fə-nĕt′ĭk)- Of or relating to phonetics.
- Representing the sounds of speech with a set of distinct symbols, each designating a single sound.