phonogram

[foh-nuh-gram]

noun

1. Linguistics.,  a symbol that represents a speech sound, syllable, or other sequence of speech sounds without reference to meaning, such as a letter in the Latin alphabet.

phonogram

/ ˈfəʊnəˌɡræm /

noun

1. any written symbol standing for a sound, syllable, morpheme, or word

2. a sequence of written symbols having the same sound in a variety of different words, for example, ough in bought, ought, and brought

Other Word Forms

• phonogramic adjective
• phonogrammic adjective
• phonogramically adverb
• phonogrammically adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of phonogram¹

First recorded in 1855–60; phono- + -gram ¹

Example Sentences

The musical accompaniment is provided by a recorded phonogram synthesizer.

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The first case before the court concerns Frank Peterson, a music producer, who sued YouTube and Google in Germany for the uploading to YouTube in 2008 of several phonograms to which he holds the rights.

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Mr. Welling forces the connection to Wyeth, though, in a series of abstract phonograms that have been digitally tinted with the colors from some of his Wyeth photographs.

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In 1888 Edison sent his first phonogram by steamer to England.

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The phonogram has now become the symbol of a monosyllable, which is normally made up of two elements, a consonant and a vowel, as in the Devanágari, and other syllabic systems.

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