diphthong: Meaning and Definition of

diph•thong

Pronunciation: (dif'thông, -thong, dip'-), [key]
— n.
  1. 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)
    1. a digraph, as the ea of meat.
    2. a ligature, as æ.
—v.t., v.i.
  1. to diphthongize.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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