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toneme

American  
[toh-neem] / ˈtoʊ nim /

noun

  1. a phoneme consisting of a contrastive feature of tone in a tone language.

    Swedish has two tonemes.
toneme British  
/ ˈtəʊniːm /

noun

  1. linguistics a phoneme that is distinguished from another phoneme only by its tone

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

  • tonemic adjective

Etymology

Origin of toneme

First recorded in 1920–25; tone + -eme

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.