tonic accent

American  

noun

1. prominence given to a syllable in speaking, usually due to a change, especially a rise, in pitch.

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tonic accent British  

noun

1. emphasis imparted to a note by virtue of its having a higher pitch, rather than greater stress or long duration relative to other notes

2. another term for pitch accent

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Etymology

Origin of tonic accent

First recorded in 1865–70

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

tonic accent

Even in words of two syllables the tonic accent must be strongly perceived in the first syllable.

From The International Auxiliary Language Esperanto Grammar and Commentary by George Cox

Nothing could have lent itself better to this than the Russian version of the Japanese poems, owing to the well known fact that Russian verse allows the tonic accent only.

From An Autobiography by Igor Stravinsky

On the contrary, no difficulty about the pronunciation of the three French words, admirable, admirer, and admiration; the tonic accent falls on the last sound syllable in every case.

From John Bull, Junior or French as She is Traduced by Max O'Rell

Eccellenza replied with a foreigner's broken shrug,—a shrug of sufficiently correct construction, but wanting the tonic accent, as one may say, though expressing, however imperfectly, an equal desolation.

From Italian Journeys by William Dean Howells

The strong tonic accent of English, which is usually on the first, or root, syllable, brings about a kind of telescoping which makes us very unintelligible to foreigners.

From The Romance of Words (4th ed.) by Ernest Weekley