phonogram

American  

[foh-nuh-gram] / ˈfoʊ nəˌgræm /

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.

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phonogram British  

/ 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

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Other Word Forms

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

Etymology

Origin of phonogram

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

Example Sentences

The musical accompaniment is provided by a recorded phonogram synthesizer.

From Seattle Times • Sep. 14, 2021

Some ten years after the late Thomas Alva Edison first recorded the human voice* on tinfoil in 1877, he sent the foregoing jingly "phonogram," on a wax cylinder, to Colonel George E. Gouraud in London.

From Time Magazine Archive

Draw pictures of several houses on the board, writing a different phonogram in each, explaining that these are the names of the families living there, as, "ed," "eg," "est," "en," etc.

From How to Teach Phonics by Williams, Lida M.

The receiver of the phonogram will put it into his apparatus and the message will be given out more clearly and distinctly than the best telephone message ever sent.

From Buchanan's Journal of Man, December 1887 Volume 1, Number 11 by Buchanan, Joseph R. (Joseph Rodes)

Also, if a sign had more than one value, a phonogram would be added to indicate which of its values was intended: thus in is św, “he,” but in it is śtn, “king.”

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 1 "Edwardes" to "Ehrenbreitstein" by Various