noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   The study of the physical sounds of human speech, concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception, and their representation by written symbols. uncountable

   "This dictionary shows the phonetics of the words."

2. 2
   the branch of acoustics concerned with speech processes including its production and perception and acoustic analysis wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

ablautacoustic phoneticsarticulatory phoneticsaudiometerauriscopeauriscopy

Example

More examples

"He is at home in phonetics as well as linguistics."

Etymology

From phonetic + -s.

Related phrases

acoustic phoneticsarticulatory phoneticsauditory phoneticsinternational phonetic alphabet

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.