phoneme

noun

pho·​neme ˈfō-ˌnēm 

: any of the abstract units of the phonetic system of a language that correspond to a set of similar speech sounds (such as the velar \k\ of cool and the palatal \k\ of keel) which are perceived to be a single distinctive sound in the language

Examples of phoneme in a Sentence

The sounds represented by “c” and “b” are different phonemes, as in the words “cat” and “bat.”

Recent Examples on the Web

Humans communicate orally by combining a relatively small number of sounds (or phonemes) to make words, which are combined again to create sentences. —Rosie McCall, Discover Magazine, 12 May 2025

Island languages tend to have far fewer phonemes than mainland ones. —Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 21 Oct. 2024

Languages differ wildly in their phoneme inventory. —Cody Cottier, Discover Magazine, 21 Oct. 2024

Certainly, there are clues: music and speech waveforms have distinct pitches (tones sounding high or low), timbres (qualities of sound), phonemes (speech sound units) and melodies. —Andrew Chang, Scientific American, 18 Sep. 2024

The electrodes picked up the chatter of neurons responsible for articulating word sounds, or phonemes, while other parts of a novel brain-computer interface (BCI) translated that chatter into clear synthetic speech. —Ingrid Wickelgren, Scientific American, 14 Aug. 2024

Humans are able to learn from very few examples, meaning that even a single encounter can solidify the connection between a silver hand puppet and the phonemes that comprise robot. —Sarah Zhang, The Atlantic, 5 Apr. 2024

There’s something rhythmic to Athenian gossip, with TV-star names merging with Greek phonemes and the names of islands, ships, and ancient philosophers. —Virginia Heffernan, WIRED, 14 Feb. 2024

The team recruited two male expert backward speakers for their experiments—both native Spanish speakers since Spanish is especially well-suited, as the phonemes always retain the same sound regardless of their position and surrounding segments. —Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 14 Sep. 2023

Word History

Etymology

borrowed from French phonème, borrowed from Greek phōnēmat-, phṓnēma "sound made by a person or animal, utterance, speech, language," from phōnē-, variant stem of phōnéō, phoneîn "to speak, utter, (of animals) make a sound, (of instruments) sound" (derivative of phōnḗ "sound made by something living, voice, speech, utterance") + -mat-, -ma, resultative noun suffix — more at phono-

First Known Use

1879, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

phoneme

noun

pho·​neme ˈfō-ˌnēm 

: one of the smallest units of speech that distinguishes one utterance from another

\n\ and \t\ in "pin" and "pit" are different phonemes

Medical Definition

phoneme

noun

pho·​neme ˈfō-ˌnēm 

: a member of the set of the smallest units of speech that serve to distinguish one utterance from another in a language or dialect

the \p\ of English pat and the \f\ of English fat are two different phonemes

phonemic

fə-ˈnē-mik, fō- 

adjective

phonemically

-mi-k(ə-)lē 

adverb