Phonology
noun ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 The study of the way sounds function in languages, including accent, intonation, phonemes, stress, and syllable structure, and which sounds are distinctive units within a language; (countable) the way sounds function within a given language; a phonological system. uncountable
"Prospectus of a new work, entitled Pantographia: Containing accurate copies of all the known alphabets in the world. Together with an English explanation of the peculiar force of each letter: To which will be added specimens of all well-authenticated oral languages, Forming a comprehensive Digest of phonology."
- 2 the study of the sound system of a given language and the analysis and classification of its phonemes wordnet
- 3 The study of the way components of signs function in a sign language, and which components are distinctive units within the language; (countable) the way components of signs function within a given sign language. broadly, uncountable
"Sign language linguists have produced many volumes of description of the phonology and morphology of signs and the syntax of sign languages."
Example
More examples"Lojban is designed to be unambiguous in orthography, phonology, morphology, and grammar. Lojban semantics, however, must support the same breadth of human thought as natural languages."
Etymology
From phono- (prefix denoting sound) + -logy (suffix denoting a branch of learning, or a study of a particular subject).
Related phrases
More for "phonology"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.