accent
Meanings
noun
- A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to emphasize it.
- Emphasis or importance in general.
- A mark used in writing, in order to indicate the place of the spoken stress.
- Any mark used in writing over letters, either in order to indicate the place of the spoken stress, or to indicate the nature or quality of the vowel marked, or to distinguish homophones.
- Modulation of the voice in speaking; the manner of speaking or pronouncing; a peculiar or characteristic modification of the voice, expressing emotion; tone.
- The distinctive manner of pronouncing a language associated with a particular region, social group, etc., whether of a native speaker or a foreign speaker; the phonetic and phonological aspects of a dialect.
- A manner of pronunciation suggesting that the speaker is from a different region; a foreign accent.
- A distinctive manner of producing a sign language, such as someone who does not normally use a certain sign language might have when using it.
- A word; a significant tone or sound.
- Expressions in general; speech.
- Stress laid on certain syllables of a verse.
- A regularly recurring stress upon the tone to mark the beginning, and, more feebly, the third part of the measure.
verb
- To express the accent of vocally; to utter with accent.
- To mark emphatically; to emphasize; to accentuate; to make prominent.
- To mark with written accents.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English accent, from Medieval Latin accentus and Old French accent, acent, both from Latin accentus, past participle of accinō (“sing to, sing along”), from ad- + canō (“to sing”). The word accent had been borrowed into Old English already, but was lost and reborrowed in Middle English.
Synonyms
Related words
Derived words
Translations
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.