juncture: Meaning and Definition of

junc•ture

Pronunciation: ( jungk'chur), [key]
— n.
  1. a point of time, esp. one made critical or important by a concurrence of circumstances: At this juncture, we must decide whether to stay or to walk out.
  2. a serious state of affairs; crisis: The matter has reached a juncture and a decision must be made.
  3. the line or point at which two bodies are joined; joint or articulation; seam.
  4. the act of joining.
  5. the state of being joined.
  6. something by which two things are joined.
    1. a pause or other phonological feature or modification of a feature, as the lengthening of a preceding phoneme or the strengthening of a following one, marking a transition or break between sounds, esp. marking the phonological boundary of a word, clause, or sentence: it is present in such words as night-rate and re-seed and absent in such words as nitrate and recede. Cf. close juncture, open juncture, terminal juncture.
    2. the point in a word or group of words at which such a pause or other junctural marker occurs.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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