Guide to pronunciation

100 words every fourth grader should know - Editors of the American Heritage Di 2014


Guide to pronunciation

This book shows how to say each word that is entered. A special spelling, called the pronunciation, appears in parentheses after the entry word. If a word has different pronunciations when it is used in different parts of speech, like elaborate, the pronunciation follows the part of speech label.

The letters and symbols in the pronunciation stand for the sounds in a word. You can see how to pronounce these letters and symbols by using the key that appears on the next page. The key has one special character (ə) that is called a schwa. The schwa is a vowel that is used in unstressed syllables, as in the first syllable of ago and the second syllable of silent.

Stress is greater loudness in a word or syllable compared with others that are spoken. Stress is shown in pronunciations by accent marks (main stress) and ′ (lighter stress). Main stress is also shown by heavy, dark letters: dictionary (dĭk′shə nĕr′ē).

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