Daily Almanac for
Dec 1, 2009
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diph•thong



Pronunciation: (dif'thông, -thong, dip'-), [key]
—n.
1. Phonet.an unsegmentable, gliding speech sound varying continuously in phonetic quality but held to be a single sound or phoneme and identified by its apparent beginning and ending sound, as the oi-sound of toy or boil.
2. (not in technical use)
a. a digraph, as the ea of meat.
b. a ligature, as æ.

—v.t., v.i.
to diphthongize.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.

diphtheroiddiphthongia
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