toneme

[ toh-neem ]

noun

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

   Swedish has two tonemes.

toneme

/ ˈtəʊniːm /

noun

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

Derived Forms

• toˈnemic, adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of toneme¹

First recorded in 1920–25; tone + -eme

Word History and Origins

Origin of toneme¹

C20: from tone + -eme