phonology
Americannoun
plural
phonologies-
the study of the distribution and patterning of speech sounds in a language and of the tacit rules governing pronunciation.
-
the phonological system or the body of phonological facts of a language.
noun
Other Word Forms
- phonologic adjective
- phonological adjective
- phonologically adverb
- phonologist noun
Etymology
Origin of phonology
Explanation
Use the noun phonology to describe the study of the way sounds are used in a language and the rules for pronouncing certain words, like the silent t in the French-derived word debut. You're most likely to hear the word phonology in a college linguistics class, learning about how specific sounds are organized and used in various languages. You might hear the terms phonetics and phonemes in the same class, both of which have to do with sound, speech, language, and meaning. All these words have their roots in the Greek word for "voice," phone, and in the case of phonology, it is combined with the Greek suffix -logy, which means "study, science, or theory."
Vocabulary lists containing phonology
Common Senses: Phon ("Sound")
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The Mother Tongue
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phon (sound)
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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.
When designing the phonology of the Yautja language, Watkins took into account the aliens’ physiology.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 10, 2025
"If you think of Sindarin - one of the two main Elvish languages - it's very much based on the phonology and grammar, at points, of Welsh," she said.
From BBC • Jan. 4, 2025
By the end of last year, her first full school year teaching this method, Hurt said 80% of her first-grade class had aced a phonology test — nothing she’d seen before in previous years.
From Seattle Times • Apr. 17, 2022
At Wellesley College, Dr. Angela Carpenter teaches the foundation of language creation, which she dices into roughly six blocks: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, grammatical rules of verbs, and nouns and what they indicate.
From The Verge • Feb. 7, 2020
The explanation of this rests on an elementary lesson in Old English phonology, which it will do the reader no harm to 62 acquire.
From English Dialects From the Eighth Century to the Present Day by Skeat, Walter W. (Walter William)
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.
