enunciate

UK/ɪˈnʌnsiˌeɪt/US/ɪˈnʌnsiˌeɪt/

verbC12 meaningsVery rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutralformal · an editor’s judgement

Other forms: enunciated, enunciates, enunciating

To enunciate is to pronounce each word slowly and very clearly. The way you say a phone number to somebody writing it down.

Singers, actors and newsreaders are trained to enunciate, and a teacher will tell a mumbling child to enunciate. It carries a hint of effort, sometimes of irritation — a person who enunciates every syllable is usually making a point. There is a second and more formal sense: to enunciate a principle is to state it clearly and publicly, and that one lives in legal and academic writing. The noun is enunciation.

Definitions of enunciate

1verbenunciateTo pronounce words clearly and distinctly.C1
“She enunciated each syllable as though he were deaf.”
2verbstateTo state a principle or idea clearly and formally.C1
“The judgment enunciated a new test.”

Where it comes from

To enunciate is to announce. Latin ēnuntiāre meant to report or to declare, from nūntiō, to report, so speaking clearly and stating a principle are one act of putting something out.

Latin
ēnuntiātus
English, today
enunciate

Built from

ēnuntiō · Latin — to report, declare
nūntiō · Latin — to report

From Latin ēnuntiātus, past participle of ēnuntiō (“to report, declare”), from ē- + nūntiō (“to report”). a doublet of enounce.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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