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syllabic

UK/sɪˈlæb.ɪk/US/sɪˈlæb.ɪk/
adjectiveC2Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechToo rare in one of the two pools to compare — fewer than 20 uses in speech or in writing

Syllabic means to do with the beats a word divides into. A syllabic pattern.

Some writing systems are syllabic, giving one symbol per beat rather than per sound. Syllabic verse counts the beats rather than the stresses, which is how French poetry works.

Definitions of syllabic

  1. 1adjectivesyllabicTo do with the beats a word divides into.C2

    “The syllabic count was fixed at seventeen.”

syllabic is a quality.

Where it comes from

Greek syllabikos, from syllabe, a syllable, literally something taken together.

  1. Ancient Greek

    συλλαβικός

  2. Medieval Latin

    syllabicus

  3. English, today

    syllabic

Built from

  • συλλαβή · Ancient Greek — syllable

From Medieval Latin syllabicus, from Ancient Greek συλλαβικός, from συλλαβή (“syllable”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

syllabic in the wild

  • The shift from pictographic writing to syllabic writing has been called "the most important advance in the history of writing".

    Syllable

  • Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, in which each syllable of text is matched to a single note.

    Melisma

  • Boyd's syllabic shorthand is a system of shorthand invented by Robert Boyd, published originally in 1903, and updated in 1912.

    Boyd's syllabic shorthand

  • Canadian syllabics are currently used to write all of the Cree languages, including Eastern Cree, Plains Cree, Swampy Cree, Woods Cree, and Naskapi.

    Canadian Aboriginal syllabics

  • Cree syllabics are the versions of Canadian Aboriginal syllabics used to write Cree dialects, including the original syllabics system created for Cree and Ojibwe.

    Cree syllabics

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

  • monosyllabic