Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Relating to or being a Greek word that has an acute accent on its last syllable.
  • adjective Relating to or being a word that has a heavy stress accent on its last syllable.
  • noun A word having the stress or the acute accent on the last syllable.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In grammar, especially Greek grammar: Having or characterized by the acute accent on the last syllable.
  • Causing a word to take the acute accent on the final syllable: as, an oxytone suffix.
  • noun A word which has the acute accent on the last syllable.
  • In grammar, to pronounce or write with the acute accent on the final syllable: as, to oxytone a word.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Having an acute sound; (Gr. Gram.), having an acute accent on the last syllable.
  • noun An acute sound.
  • noun (Gr. Gram.) A word having the acute accent on the last syllable.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective linguistics Pertaining to a word with the stress or an acute accent on the last syllable.
  • noun linguistics A word with the stress or an acute accent on the last syllable.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun word having stress or an acute accent on the last syllable

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Greek oxutonos : oxus, sharp; see ak- in Indo-European roots + tonos, tone; see tone.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Ancient Greek ὀξύτονος.

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Examples

  • And now I think about it, the Sanskrit accent actually makes a point in favor of the bisyllabic version of the word parśú- which is, due to the consonant 'grade', expected to be oxytone I think.

    Battling the Indo-European axe 2009

  • [2996] Amphilochius's doubt may have arisen from the fact that phagos, the Doric form of phegos, the esculent oak of Homer, is oxytone.

    NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works 1895

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