Definitions

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

  • noun The branch of linguistics that deals with the sounds of speech and their production, combination, description, and representation by written symbols.
  • noun The system of sounds of a particular language.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Phonetic science; that division of language-study which deals with articulate sounds and whatever concerns them: phonology.

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

  • noun The doctrine or science of sounds; especially those of the human voice; phonology.
  • noun The art of representing vocal sounds by signs and written characters.

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

  • noun linguistics The study of the physical sounds of human speech, concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds (phones), and the processes of their physiological production, auditory reception, and neurophysiological perception, and their representation by written symbols.

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

  • noun the branch of acoustics concerned with speech processes including its production and perception and acoustic analysis

Etymologies

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Examples

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  • ... Words. I have to remember to speak words now. I say something. But you do not hear me unless I move my lips. To move my lips and my tongue ... while I make this noise in my throat.�?

    Mamelta in Gene Wolfe's The Book of the Long Sun

    August 10, 2009

  • "Hukt on fonix wurkt for me!"

    August 10, 2009