Standard Lemma guide
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
No pronunciation record was provided for this word.
noun
A letter, or combination of letters, that can be pronounced in two or more different ways
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
a letter that has two or more pronunciations
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
Synonyms: polyphonic letter
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: letter, letter of the alphabet, alphabetic character
History
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *pleh1- Proto-Indo-European *polh1ús Ancient Greek πολῠ́ς (polŭ́s)lbor. English poly- French télé- Proto-Indo-European *bheh2-der. Proto-Hellenic *phōnā́ Ancient Greek φωνή (phōnḗ)der. French -phone French téléphonebor. English telephone English phone English polyphone From poly- + phone.
Across languages
3 source translations are retained for this English entry.
