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syllable

UK/ˈsɪl.ə.bəl/US/ˈsɪl.ə.bəl/
nounB2Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,036 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: syllables

A syllable is one beat of a word. Three syllables, stress the first syllable, count the syllables.

Every syllable has a vowel sound at its centre, and the consonants group around it — which is why the count is about sounds rather than letters: strength is one syllable and area is three. Stress falls on particular syllables and moving it changes meaning in pairs like record. Note in words of one syllable, meaning explained very simply; and syllabic.

Definitions of syllable

  1. 1nounsyllableOne beat of a word.B2

    “In the word 'banana', the stress falls on the second syllable.”

syllable is a unit of sound.

Where it comes from

Greek syllabe means something taken together — syn plus lambanein, to take. Syllabus is a separate word that only looks related.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *sem-

  2. Ancient Greek

    συλλαβή

  3. Latin

    syllaba

  4. Old French

    sillebe

  5. Anglo-Norman

    sillable

  6. Middle English

    syllable

  7. English, today

    syllable

Built from

  • συλλαμβάνω · Ancient Greek — to gather together
  • συν- · Ancient Greek — together
  • λαμβάνω · Ancient Greek — to take

From Middle English syllable, sillable, syllabylle, sylabul, from Anglo-Norman sillable, from Old French sillebe, from Latin syllaba, from Ancient Greek συλλαβή, from συλλαμβάνω (“to gather together”), from συν- (“together”) + λαμβάνω (“to take”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Academic English

Practise this word

syllable in the wild

  • A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word.

    Syllable

  • In phonology and studies of languages, syllables are often considered the "building blocks" of words.

    Syllable

  • The stress placed on syllables within words is called word stress.

    Stress (linguistics)

  • Extra-long syllables with three morae (trimoraic) are relatively rare.

    Mora (linguistics)

  • Such metrics based on syllables are also referred to as syllable weight.

    Mora (linguistics)

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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.

From Project Gutenberg, public domain. These sentences are from real books, shown to illustrate the word at work.