unstressed

[uhn-strest]

See more synonyms for unstressed on Thesaurus.com

adjective

without stress or emphasis, as a syllable in a word.
not receiving or subjected to stress, wear, etc.: the unstressed parts of a car body.

Origin of unstressed

First recorded in 1880–85; un-¹ + stress + -ed²

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for unstressed

poor, quiet, dull, thin, small, feeble, low, dim, distant, gentle, imperceptible, inaudible, indistinct, muffled, pale, slight, whispered, bated, reedy, stifled

Examples from the Web for unstressed

Historical Examples of unstressed

This rhythm is obtained by mingling stressed and unstressed syllables.
Irradiations; Sand and Spray
John Gould Fletcher
The number of unstressed syllables at the end of a line is not fixed.
Modern Spanish Lyrics
Various
The former, the rest, is a pause used to take the place of an unstressed element.
The Principles of English Versification
Paull Franklin Baum
The monosyllabic foot in which the unstressed element is missing offers no difficulty.
The Principles of English Versification
Paull Franklin Baum
Began: notice the quality of the vowel in the first, unstressed syllable of this word.
The Sounds of Spoken English
Walter Rippmann

British Dictionary definitions for unstressed

unstressed

adjective

carrying relatively little stress; unemphasized
phonetics of, relating to, or denoting the weakest accent in a word or breath group, which in some languages, such as English or German, is also associated with a reduction in vowel quality to a centralized (i) or (a)
prosody (of a syllable in verse) having no stress or accent

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