pronunciation

American  

[pruh-nuhn-see-ey-shuhn] / prəˌnʌn siˈeɪ ʃən /

noun

1. the act or result of producing the sounds of speech, including articulation, stress, and intonation, often with reference to some standard of correctness or acceptability.

   They are arguing about the pronunciation of “forte” again.

   His pronunciation retains charming traces of his early years in Ireland.

2. an accepted standard of the sound and stress patterns of a syllable, word, phrase, etc..

   He said the pronunciation of “curl” is kɜrlkurl not kɔɪlkoil

3. the conventional patterns of treatment of the sounds of a language.

   the pronunciation of French.

4. a phonetic transcription of a given word, sound, etc..

   The pronunciation of “pheasant” is ˈfɛzəntfezuhnt

5. Rare. an act or instance of declaring publicly; pronouncement.

   It was but the latest pronunciation of the political double-standard uttered in the course of this scandal.

   Synonyms:

   dissemination, promulgation, proclamation, affirmation, announcement, statement, assertion, declaration

6. Obsolete.

   1. elocution or delivery.

   2. elegant speech; oratory.

   3. an act or instance of speaking.

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pronunciation British  

/ prəˌnʌnsɪˈeɪʃən /

noun

1. the act, instance, or manner of pronouncing sounds

2. the supposedly correct manner of pronouncing sounds in a given language

3. a phonetic transcription of a word

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Pronunciation

It may seem odd for the pronunciation of this very word to be an issue; the pronunciation of pronunciation should be evident from its spelling. The vowel in the second syllable is u, said as in the word up. It is not the diphthong ou, as in ouch. However, for some people, the impulse to retain the sound pattern of the familiar verb pronounce is too strong to resist, and we hear this word said as if it were spelled p-r-o-n-o-u-n-c-i-a-t-i-o-n all too frequently. All this is a reminder that the entire subject of “correct” pronunciation is fraught with controversy. Changes from what we heard growing up are often resisted with surprisingly passionate scorn. And yet we know that language is constantly changing, and that many pronunciations once attacked as ignorant are now accepted without question in even the most educated circles. For example, we hear , as well as the older , for schism, and , as well as the historically correct , for the sense of forte meaning “something that one excels in” (see Pronunciation note at forte ¹ ). And stress patterns change with new generations: increasingly, is overtaking for comparable. Language experts seize the opportunity to note and study these changes; language innovation can be fascinating--even exciting. But some deviations from the current norm will not become part of an accepted standard, and as long as the way one speaks remains a marker of one's education, or one's ability to perform well in school or in a prospective job, it is best to avoid misguided pronunciations like .

Other Word Forms

• nonpronunciation
  noun
• pronunciational
  adjective
• pronunciative
  adjective
• pronunciatory
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of pronunciation

First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English pronunciacion, from Latin prōnūntiātiōn- (stem of prōnūntiātiō ) “delivery (of a speech),” equivalent to prōnūntiāt(us) (past participle of prōnūntiāre “to proclaim, announce, utter”) + -iōn- noun suffix; see origin at pronounce, -ate ¹, -ion

Explanation

Pronunciation is the way words are spoken. Sometimes you can tell where someone is from by their pronunciation of certain words. Pronunciation is one of the hardest parts of learning a new language. Reading a language and speaking it are two very different things. If you know French but your pronunciation of French words is wrong, French people won’t understand you. In English, the pronunciation of some words varies, depending on where people are saying them. For example, Americans say “tomato,” and the Brits say “tamahto.” The word pronunciation comes from the difficult-to-pronounce Latin root pronuntiationem, which means “act of speaking” or "a proclamation.”

Example Sentences

Israel was newly founded as a nation, and pronunciation, not translation, was at the center of the instruction, so after all that time I still couldn’t read or speak Hebrew.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 23, 2026

So for me personally as a listener, it’s about that effort, rather than getting the perfect pronunciation.

From Salon • Mar. 27, 2026

Some tasks involve translating ancient Palmyrene inscriptions, while others require identifying tiny anatomical structures in birds or analyzing detailed features of Biblical Hebrew pronunciation.

From Science Daily • Mar. 13, 2026

As the young children enthusiastically sang out phrases, Esau interjected occasionally to correct their pronunciation of the distinct sounds and deep clicks of her mother tongue, of which she is the last first-language speaker.

From Barron's • Oct. 10, 2025

Even though I’ve said them thousands of times in my life, over the past week I worked with Thaya Jaan to focus on the sounds of each letter with the rules of Quranic pronunciation.

From "Amina's Voice" by Hena Khan

Related Words

• diction
• inflection
• utterance