phonic
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
- phonically adverb
Etymology
Origin of phonic
Explanation
Something that's phonic is related to spoken words or sounds. Puns often rely on phonic similarities between words — like when you declare that the panda at the zoo has "the right to bear arms." In its singular form, phonic is generally used as a synonym for phonetic — both words describe the sounds of speech. The phonic elements of poetry are much clearer when it's read out loud, while the phonic variations between words in a foreign language can be tricky to distinguish from each other when you're just starting to learn it. Add an s and you get phonics, a method of teaching reading by sounding out letters.
Vocabulary lists containing phonic
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.
His team’s series of experiments showed that whales produce their wide repertoire of sounds with the same organ — the phonic lips in their nose, which vibrate much like a larynx does in humans.
From Washington Post • Mar. 2, 2023
"In toothed whales, air is only used to drive the phonic lips that then, via tissue acceleration, generates a click that propagates through tissue in the nose and then into the water," Elemans added.
From Reuters • Mar. 2, 2023
Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman and Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You revolve around the idea of phonic passing and “code switching”.
From The Guardian • Aug. 20, 2018
The clicks, produced in organs known as phonic lips at rates of up to 1,000 clicks per second, are inaudible to the human ear, but detectable through special, underwater microphones.
From New York Times • Nov. 9, 2016
Mr. Murray adopted a phonic system of teaching reading, not so complete as the late Mr. Hartley formulated for our South Australian schools, and was most successful with it.
From An Autobiography by Spence, Catherine Helen
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.
